SpaceX's Elon Musk reveals $40 billion debt for AI chips, warns of neoclouds

SpaceX (SPCX) CEO Elon Musk said his company has finalized $40 billion in financing to fund specialized chips used to power AI, but warned that access to debt is drying up for companies that rely solely on data center revenue.

“Over the past few weeks, debt markets have almost entirely closed off access to money to any company that does not have substantial revenue independent of AI data centers,” Musk wrote on X on Sunday.

Musk went on to say that SpaceX (SPCX) closed $40 billion in debt for GPUS, or Nvidia’s (NVDA) graphics processing units, used for AI, but stressed that the space company is “investment grade” and has revenue from launching Starlink and rockets.

In a follow-up post, Musk noted that this is “primarily debt due for GPU purchases that will arrive in Q1 and Q2. Not a major factor this quarter.”

Musk’s comments reignited concerns about the rising cost of capital and the business models of so-called neoclouds, which rent computing power to train and run AI models.

The debt disclosure follows a better-than-expected quarter from SpaceX.

The company’s AI segment brought in $7.6 billion in the third quarter, more than Starlink and the rocket business combined, and more than half of SpaceX’s $14.6 billion in total revenue.

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Musk also attacked neoclouds, companies that rent computing power and artificial intelligence chips, saying they were “going to see guppy-level death and consolidation.”

“Some will succeed, but not many,” Musk said.

Shares of neocloud provider CoreWeave (CRWV) fell more than 3% in premarket trading.

Comments following a viral chart earlier this month highlighted CoreWeave’s rising bond yields, highlighting concerns about the company’s heavily leveraged balance sheet.

Shares of CoreWeave have fallen more than 37% over the past month.