Apollo Announces Nearly $40 Billion in Financing for SpaceX Chips Ahead of Quarterly Results
Key Facts
SpaceX announced a binding commitment to enter into a major financing lease worth nearly $40 billion to purchase GPU units and related equipment from an entity managed by Apollo, in a deal the company described as the largest committed financing for chips of this kind. The announcement puts computer infrastructure financing at the center of Apollo’s credit expansion, amid rising demand for the capacity needed to run artificial intelligence applications. It comes as markets await Apollo’s quarterly results, due before trading opens on November 3. Apollo said the agreement is expected to close before the end of 2026. The lease schedules are expected to begin when the GPU units and related equipment are delivered in the first half of 2027.
Details of the deal, according to a Reuters report published on October 26, say each lease will run for slightly more than 5 years from the date the equipment arrives. This ties the start of lease obligations to actual delivery, expected in the first half of 2027, rather than the date the agreement was announced. The deal aims to finance computing equipment directly through a leasing structure, with an entity managed by Apollo handling the financing. The available announcement did not break down the contract’s value between GPU units and other equipment. The next announced step is to close the agreement before the end of 2026, followed by the start of deliveries and lease schedules in 2027.
The SpaceX agreement follows an earlier expansion in financing for artificial intelligence infrastructure. In June, Apollo announced that it was leading an initial $35 billion capital solution under a platform linked to Broadcom, designed to provide more than 20 gigawatts of computing capacity through 2028. Apollo said the financing facilitates Anthropic’s announced expansion of more than 1 gigawatt, starting in mid-2026. The arrangement reflects financing directed toward building the computing capacity required for expansion, rather than serving only to finance model-development companies. The two deals show the widening range of financing structures linking Apollo to computing projects, from a platform capital solution to a long-term equipment lease.
In August, Nvidia, Apollo and five other financial institutions announced the launch of independent financing platforms targeting the mobilization of more than $500 billion in external capital to build AI infrastructure over time. The figure is a collective target for the platforms and partners, not financing provided by Apollo alone. The announcement came amid cooperation linking chip companies and financial institutions with infrastructure projects, while the SpaceX agreement represents a separate commitment worth nearly $40 billion. In its mid-2026 credit outlook, Apollo said, "Financing AI expansion has become a question of the market’s capacity to absorb financing." The new deal adds an example of the capital scale these projects require, according to the announced arrangements.
Second-quarter figures provide a reference for the scale of Apollo’s business ahead of its third-quarter results. The company reported $1.047 trillion in assets under management for the quarter, with inflows of $60 billion and credit origination of $74 billion. It said inflows comprised $38 billion for asset management and $22 billion for retirement services. It also said assets under management stood at about $1.05 trillion on June 30, 2026. These are different measures: assets under management measure the funds the company manages, inflows measure new money, while credit origination refers to the volume of financing originated; none on its own represents the value of the SpaceX agreement.
Apollo will report third-quarter 2026 results before trading opens on November 3, with management set to review the results in a public webcast at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The disclosure follows the company’s announcement of the results date in September and precedes the expected completion of the SpaceX agreement by year-end. The quarterly results will provide an update on the company’s performance following the second-quarter figures, while the start of lease schedules remains tied to equipment delivery during the first half of 2027.