Fitch Says SpaceX GPU Lease Worth $40 Billion Leaves Its BBB+ Rating Intact

Forty billion dollars is a lot to borrow for computer chips, and Fitch Ratings says SpaceX can carry it. On Wednesday, the agency said the SpaceX GPU lease with an Apollo managed entity will not change the company's BBB+ credit rating, according to Investing.com. The lease, announced by SpaceX and Apollo on October 26, will pay for Nvidia's next generation Vera Rubin chips for what SpaceX calls its terrestrial compute buildout.

The deal is easiest to understand through its figures.

The SpaceX GPU lease in eight figures

• About $40 billion: the size of the master finance lease, which SpaceX and Apollo call the largest GPU financing ever.
• Year end 2026: when the lease is expected to close, subject to conditions.
• First half of 2027: when the GPUs are expected to arrive and lease schedules begin.
• About five years: the length of individual lease terms (five to five and a quarter years), according to Gadget Review, citing filing coverage by Morningstar and Dow Jones.
• Under one year: the payback period SpaceX's CFO says the company sees on its "SI" infrastructure investments.
• BBB+: SpaceX's Fitch rating, unchanged.
• $7.6 billion: SpaceX's SI revenue in the third quarter of 2026, up from $0.8 billion a year earlier, per the Fitch figures reported by Investing.com.
• 1.7 GW: SpaceX's nameplate compute at September 30, up from 0.6 GW a year before.

Apollo, Goldman and BlackRock behind the money

Apollo and Goldman Sachs led the financing, with Goldman acting as sole structuring agent, according to the SpaceX release. Funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and capital accounts advised by KKR made anchor commitments.

Using a lease instead of a plain loan means an Apollo managed entity owns the equipment and SpaceX pays to use it. SpaceX's CFO said the arrangement diversifies the company's funding sources. More terms are due in a Form 8-K filing with the SEC.

How Fitch squares $40 billion with a steady rating

Fitch said the deal fits its existing rating case and covers compute capacity already in its June 2026 forecast. The agency will not count the lease as debt in its main leverage measure, though it will track lease adjusted leverage on the side.

The balance sheet gives it room. Fitch's figures put SpaceX's cash at $89.9 billion and total debt at $38.0 billion at the end of September. It expects EBITDA leverage of about 1.5 times at the end of 2026, easing to around 1.0 times in 2027.

The growth assumptions are steep, though. Fitch's case has SpaceX averaging 5.0 GW of compute in 2027 and 9.5 GW in 2028, several times today's level.

One customer, 34.5% of revenue

A single SI customer accounted for 34.5% of SpaceX's consolidated revenue in the third quarter, and 24.2% for the year to date, up from under 10% a year earlier, according to the Fitch details. Cloud contracts like these typically run three years and can be ended on 90 days' notice.

That gap is worth noting. The chip lease runs about five years, while a big customer could walk away far sooner. If demand for AI compute stays as strong as it looks now, with Amazon saying its capacity is spoken for into 2027, the bet could pay back quickly. If demand cools, SpaceX would be holding years of lease payments on chips it no longer needs.

SpaceX has been stretching well beyond rockets, from its push into cell sites to the merger with Tesla and what it means for their bitcoin. Other giants are raising cash for the same race, as Meta's stock offering shows. The 8-K should reveal the one number this deal has not shown yet: what SpaceX pays in interest. More company coverage is on our tech page.