SpaceX signs $40B GPU lease with Apollo and Goldman to finance Vera Rubin compute for xAI

The $40B lease is a novel financing structure: rather than buying GPUs outright, SpaceX leases them from Apollo, with Goldman involved, over five to five-and-a-quarter years. Leasing begins in the first half of 2027.

The arrangement shifts capital intensity off SpaceX/xAI's balance sheet, similar to how airlines lease aircraft. It also reflects lenders' growing comfort treating GPUs as collateralizable assets despite fast depreciation.

xAI's Q3 revenue reached about $7.56B, roughly nine times year-earlier levels, giving lenders some comfort. The deal joins Meta's $95B raise and Anthropic's compute commitments as evidence that financing, not chips, is now the main constraint.

Caveats: a 5-year lease on hardware that may be obsolete in 2-3 years carries real residual-value risk. Watch terms and whether other labs copy the model.