SpaceX signed a binding commitment for a $40 billion lease that lets an Apollo Global Management entity buy Nvidia chips and rent them back to the company. The Vera Rubin hardware is due in the first half of 2027, and the deal is expected to close before the end of 2026.
SpaceX reported $7.6 billion in AI revenue for the third quarter, part of $14.6 billion overall, and had 1.7 gigawatts of computing capacity on Sept. 30. On Oct. 31, Musk described Colossus 2's four halls near Memphis, holding about 860,000 GB300 chips, with a 200,000-chip hall built for selling inference time due in December. Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI rent capacity there; Anthropic's contracts could be worth up to $120.5 billion through 2029, though most can be ended on 90 days' notice.
Why it matters
SpaceX is borrowing $40 billion for chips whose rental income comes from customers who can leave on 90 days' notice.
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Key Indicators
$7.6B
Third-quarter AI revenue
Mostly from renting computing capacity to Anthropic, Google and Reflection.
13 GW
Target capacity for 2027
Target for the end of 2027. The company guided to 2.5 to 3 gigawatts by the end of 2026 and had 1.7 gigawatts at Sept. 30.
1.7 GW
Capacity at Sept. 30
Nameplate AI compute at the end of the third quarter.
~860K
GB300 chips in Colossus 2's four halls
Macroharder and Minihard are online, Gun Range is due by end-November and the inference hall, Spam, in December.
$120.5B
Anthropic's disclosed ceiling
Maximum payments through 2029, above the $84.5 billion in its confidential prospectus.
$40B
Chip financing
An Apollo-managed entity buys Nvidia Vera Rubin hardware and leases it to SpaceX; the commitment has not yet closed.
22 events
Latest: October 31st, 2026 · 1 week ago
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October 2026
Musk breaks down Colossus 2 hall by hall
LatestInfrastructure
Musk said the Memphis site has four GB300 halls: Macroharder and Minihard, both online with about 220,000 chips each, Gun Range due by end-November, and Spam, a roughly 200,000-chip hall wired for inference and selling compute, due in December. He put the site at around 1.2 million Blackwell chips by year-end.
Lease terms detailed in SEC filing
Financing
A Form 8-K described separate lease schedules of about five to five and a quarter years per equipment batch, with rent paid quarterly in advance, one-twentieth of financed cost plus fixed-rate interest. Deliveries are expected to start in the first half of 2027.
SpaceX signs $40 billion lease for Nvidia chips
Financing
An entity managed by Apollo Global Management will buy Nvidia Vera Rubin chips and server hardware and lease them to SpaceX, with about $40 billion in total principal payments. Leases run slightly more than five years from delivery, expected in the first half of 2027, and the deal was expected to close before the end of 2026.
Anthropic commitment revised to $84.5 billion
Disclosure
Documents reviewed by Reuters put Anthropic's agreement at up to $84.5 billion through 2029, nearly double the roughly $42.5 billion implied by its original $1.25 billion-a-month terms. Most terms allow either side to end the deal on 90 days' notice.
SpaceX reports $7.6 billion in quarterly AI revenue
Earnings
Third-quarter revenue rose 161% to $14.58 billion, including $7.6 billion from renting AI computing. AI capital spending was $16.4 billion of the company's $19.6 billion total.
Musk says demand exceeds SpaceX compute supply
Statement
On the third-quarter call, Musk said large cloud companies and dozens of smaller firms are asking for capacity, and SpaceX could rent it several times over. He said SpaceX will keep roughly half for internal work and rent the rest at spot-market rates.
SpaceX stock falls ahead of Q3 results
Market
SpaceX shares traded near $146 on Oct. 18 after a weekly drop of more than 10%, as investors waited for third-quarter results due Oct. 20.
Musk said SpaceX tried to rent inference computing from AWS, Google Cloud or anyone else so it could shift load off its training clusters, but could not. The remark came as SpaceX rents capacity to Google and Anthropic.
Google begins paying SpaceX $920 million a month
Deal
The first $920 million monthly payment under a 33-month contract for about 110,000 Nvidia GPUs plus CPUs and memory, running through June 2029.
SpaceX sets 13-gigawatt compute target for 2027
Guidance
A UBS report says SpaceX now targets 13 gigawatts by the end of 2027, up from 2.5 to 3 gigawatts. It had 1.7 gigawatts at Sept. 30 and 2.2 gigawatts in October.
Anthropic takes over Colossus 1
Deal
Anthropic leased the entire Colossus 1 site in Memphis, more than 300 megawatts and about 220,000 Nvidia GPUs. xAI moved its main operations to Colossus 2, and Musk reserved the right to reclaim the capacity if Anthropic's AI is found to be harmful.
Anthropic discloses up to $120.5 billion in SpaceX spending
Disclosure
Anthropic puts its maximum payments to SpaceX at up to $120.5 billion through 2029, above the $84.5 billion in its confidential prospectus. The agreements have initial periods, and the figure is a ceiling.
July 2026
Pentagon data-center talks reported
Report
The Wall Street Journal reported SpaceX is in talks to provide the Pentagon with data-center capacity for running AI models, potentially worth billions. The deal is not final.
June 2026
Deal terms made public
Disclosure
Reporting details the up-to-$6.3 billion value and a 90-day exit clause after three months.
SpaceX signs Reflection AI
Deal
SpaceX agrees to supply Nvidia GB300 chips to Reflection for $150 million a month through 2029.
SpaceX lists in record-setting IPO
IPO
SpaceX went public at a valuation near $1.8 trillion, a record-setting debut.
Google compute deal reported
Deal
SpaceX agreed to give Google about 110,000 Nvidia GPUs for $920 million a month.
May 2026
Anthropic compute deal reported
Deal
Anthropic agrees to pay $1.25 billion a month for Colossus compute, reports say.
February 2026
SpaceX acquires xAI
Acquisition
SpaceX bought xAI in February 2026, folding the Colossus data centers into the company.
2026
Colossus 2 comes online
Infrastructure
The Memphis-area cluster launches with 555,000 Nvidia GPUs bought for roughly $18 billion.
October 2025
Reflection raises $2 billion
Funding
The startup raises $2 billion to build an American open frontier lab, with Nvidia backing.
March 2024
Reflection AI founded
Background
Ex-DeepMind researchers Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou start the open-model lab.
Scenarios
1
Reflection stays with SpaceX through 2026
Likely
Resolves by Jan 15, 2027
Discussed by: CNBC, DataCenterDynamics
The contract lets either side walk with 90 days' notice after the first three months. In this case, Reflection keeps paying and does not invoke that clause during 2026. The startup needs the GB300 capacity to train its first models, and walking early would signal trouble to investors who just valued it at $25 billion.
2
SpaceX signs another billion-dollar compute client
Possible
Resolves by Q2 2027
Discussed by: DataCenterDynamics, Teslarati
SpaceX has already booked Google, Anthropic and Reflection. With Colossus capacity still expanding, it could land at least one more multi-billion-dollar compute customer. A new contract on the scale of these would confirm SpaceX as a fixture in the AI rental market rather than a one-off opportunist.
3
Reflection ships its first open model
Possible
Resolves by Q2 2027
Discussed by: TechCrunch, Turing Post
Reflection has raised billions and rented vast compute without releasing a product. Using the GB300 capacity, it could publish its first open-weights frontier model. Shipping would test whether the funding and compute translate into a system that rivals DeepSeek or Meta's Llama.
4
Reflection exits the contract early
Unlikely
Resolves by End of 2027
Discussed by: DataCenterDynamics
If Reflection's fundraising stalls or its models underperform, it could use the 90-day clause to walk away. A $150 million monthly bill is heavy for a firm with no product revenue. An early exit would dent SpaceX's contracted-revenue figure and raise questions about demand built on pre-revenue startups.
5
SpaceX lands Pentagon data-center deal
Possible
Resolves by Q1 2027
Discussed by: Fortune, The Wall Street Journal
SpaceX is in talks to provide the Pentagon with data-center capacity for AI models, potentially worth billions. A signed deal would strengthen the case that selling compute is a lasting business and add a government customer to its roster.
6
Anthropic cuts its SpaceX compute commitment
Possible
Resolves by Q2 2027
Discussed by: Reuters, The Inference
Most of Anthropic's $84.5 billion commitment can be ended on 90 days' notice. If Anthropic's own data centers come online or its spending plans change, it could walk away from part of the Colossus capacity. That would test whether SpaceX's AI revenue is as durable as the headline contract suggests.
7
SpaceX reaches 13 gigawatts by end-2027
Possible
Resolves by End of 2027
Discussed by: UBS, Elon Musk
SpaceX targets 13 gigawatts of computing capacity by the end of 2027, up from 1.7 gigawatts in September. Musk said power generation availability could push the total as high as 20 gigawatts.
8
Google cancels its SpaceX GPU contract
Possible
Resolves by Apr 1, 2027
Discussed by: Supercharged Daily, Blockspace
Google can end its $920 million-a-month contract on 90 days' notice after Dec. 31, 2026. If Google's own data centers come online or prices fall, it could walk away, costing SpaceX nearly $1 billion a month.
9
SpaceX closes the $40 billion chip lease on schedule
Likely
Resolves by End of 2026
Discussed by: SpaceX, CNBC
SpaceX called the lease a binding commitment but said it still depends on closing conditions, with a target of closing before the end of 2026. A close would put Vera Rubin deliveries on track for the first half of 2027 and keep the 13-gigawatt buildout funded.
10
SpaceX reaches 2.5 to 3 gigawatts by Dec. 31
Possible
Resolves by Feb 28, 2027
Discussed by: Bret Johnsen, BrowserStay
SpaceX's finance chief guided to 2.5 to 3 gigawatts of nameplate compute by the end of 2026, up from 1.7 gigawatts on Sept. 30. Musk's October buildout plan puts roughly 220,000 GB300s a month into service, which would need the Gun Range and Spam halls to switch on as scheduled.
Historical Context
3 moments from history that rhyme with this story — and how they unfolded.
1 of 3
March 2006
Amazon launches Amazon Web Services (2006)
Amazon, a retailer, began renting out computing and storage capacity it had built for its own use. The cloud business started small and was dismissed by some as a distraction from selling books and electronics.
Then
AWS grew quietly while competitors underestimated it.
Now
It became Amazon's most profitable arm and the backbone of much of the internet, proving that an infrastructure side business can outgrow the core.
Why this matters now
Like Amazon, SpaceX is turning infrastructure built for itself into a rental business that may rival its original purpose.
2 of 3
2023
CoreWeave pivots from crypto mining to AI cloud (2023)
CoreWeave, which had run graphics chips to mine cryptocurrency, retooled its GPUs to rent AI computing power. Nvidia invested, and the company signed large contracts with AI labs hungry for chips.
Then
CoreWeave's revenue and valuation jumped as the AI boom drove demand for GPUs.
Now
It became a major neocloud, while critics warned its growth leaned on a few big customers and on Nvidia financing.
Why this matters now
It is the closest model for SpaceX's move: Nvidia-backed compute rental with revenue concentrated in a handful of AI clients.
3 of 3
1998-2001
Telecom fiber overbuild (late 1990s)
Companies like Global Crossing and WorldCom borrowed heavily to lay fiber-optic cable, betting internet demand would fill it. Contracts and forecasts justified the spending. Much of the capacity sat unused.
Then
Valuations soared, then collapsed when demand fell short and accounting problems surfaced.
Now
Several giants went bankrupt, though the cheap fiber they left behind later powered the broadband era.
Why this matters now
It is the cautionary case for compute deals financed on projected demand from customers who have not yet earned the revenue to pay.
