SpaceX, Oracle, Broadcom pursue private credit for AI chip purchases

SpaceX, Oracle, and Broadcom are in early-stage talks with major investment firms and lenders to secure tens of billions of dollars in debt financing for artificial-intelligence chip purchases. SpaceX is negotiating a roughly $40 billion financing deal tied to Nvidia chips, with discussions involving banks and investors including Pacific Investment Management Co., according to people familiar with the matter. The talks are preliminary and could conclude without a completed deal.

Broadcom is separately arranging more than $50 billion in financing for a custom AI chip it is developing with OpenAI. The company has approached lenders including Apollo Global Management and Blackstone. The financing package could cover several gigawatts of OpenAI chip capacity and potentially close before year-end, according to sources. Broadcom and OpenAI announced their partnership a year earlier, with plans to develop 10 gigawatts of custom chips on Broadcom's networking technology, with deployment scheduled from the second half of 2026 through the end of 2029.

Oracle is also in discussions with Apollo Global Management and Goldman Sachs about funding a large chip purchase, aiming to complete a deal this year. The company is continuing talks with multiple potential partners. These financing efforts reflect a structural shift in how major technology firms fund AI infrastructure. For years, the largest cloud companies paid for servers and chips primarily from cash flow, but rising costs of data-center build-outs have pushed major buyers beyond the capacity of public bond markets. The financing is designed to cover the gap between upfront hardware costs and the cloud revenue expected to be generated over time.

Market reaction was mixed. Following reports of SpaceX's fundraising discussions, a measure of the company's credit risk surged to a record high, and SpaceX bonds fell in the secondary market. Stock prices showed minor movement: Oracle was down 0.8% during the regular session, Broadcom had a small gain, and SpaceX fell 2.5% during the trading day before edging up in after-hours trading.