SpaceX Wants $40 Billion in Debt to Buy NVIDIA Chips

SpaceX is in early talks to raise about $40 billion in debt to buy NVIDIA chips, according to the Financial Times — a staggering sum that shows even the world’s most valuable private company has to borrow big to play the AI game.

The cost of insuring SpaceX’s debt against default hit a high last week, the highest since the contracts began trading in June — a sign credit markets are watching the leverage pile up. SpaceX shares still rose on the news plus a new buy rating from Barclays, because in 2026, spending billions on compute reads as ambition, not risk.

Meanwhile SpaceX’s 800 MHz spectrum deal is quietly reshaping Starlink’s story. It’s no longer just filling coverage gaps from orbit — it’s assembling the pieces to compete directly in mobile communications. Telecom could be the next industry SpaceX disrupts.

Zoom out and the pattern is the week’s real story: the AI buildout has become a capital-markets story. SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, Lambda, Waymo — everyone’s raising billions in debt and equity to fund the next stage. The models are built; now comes the financing.