SPCX · Research
SpaceX Has a Neocloud's Capex and a Launch Company's Balance Sheet
SpaceX committed to a $40B GPU lease on Oct 24 while spending 171.52% of revenue on capex. The difference from CoreWeave is $13.43B of net cash, a 5.86% bond stack and a profit pool beyond compute.
What was actually signed
On Oct 24, 2026 SpaceX signed a binding commitment letter for a master finance lease with an Apollo-managed lessor to acquire and lease GPU pods. Tranches run about five to five and one-quarter years, rent is paid quarterly in advance at one-twentieth of financed cost plus a fixed rate set at pricing, aggregate principal payments are about $40B, closing is expected before year end and schedules start in the first half of 2027 as GPUs arrive [1].
Principal alone is $2.00B a quarter, or $8.00B a year at full run-rate, before interest. Elon Musk said on X that the deal had closed; the filing says commitment, so treat closing as pending [5].
It is not yet on the balance sheet. At Sep 30 SpaceX carried $37.86B of debt (principal $38.01B), led by $25.00B of notes sold in June 2026 at a weighted-average 5.86% [2].
Adding the lease would move debt from 3.72x to 7.65x trailing EBITDA, so we show it pro forma only. Vera Rubin chips, the lender group and a payback under one year come from SpaceX's own statement as carried by the press, not the filing [3].
The 7.75% and 8.30% rates are Semafor's, from people familiar, and are unconfirmed [4].
Why borrow with $89.86B on hand
SpaceX held $51.29B of cash and $38.56B of marketable securities at Sep 30 [2]. Against that, nine-month capex was already $48.07B and management guided Q4 capex to $35B to $40B, which implies $83.07B to $88.07B for 2026 [2][6].
Trailing cash after capex and stock pay is negative $43.93B, and the nine-month profit that carries it is Connectivity, with $5.21B of operating income against a $3.30B loss in SI [2]. The lease pays for the 2027 Vera Rubin wave, which Musk sized at about 10 incremental gigawatts, without spending the whole cash pile first [6].
Where SpaceX beats the neoclouds, and where it does not
Cost of money is the clearest edge. CoreWeave's effective interest rates run 9% to 15% on its delayed-draw facilities and 10% on senior notes, and it carries $35.07B of debt against $5.52B of cash at Jun 30 [7].
Nebius signed a $3.50B bridge loan on Oct 22 that matures Oct 16, 2027 at Term SOFR plus 2.75%, stepping up to 3.50% [9]. SpaceX's lease, at the reported 7.75%, sits between its own 5.86% bonds and the neocloud range.
Musk's warning that some of more than 200 neoclouds could fail is a competitor's view [5]; the peer table is the filed evidence, and it shows CoreWeave at 9.33x debt to EBITDA while Nebius and IREN have EBITDA near zero or below.
Contract length is the weakness. CoreWeave holds $103.70B of remaining performance obligations, 41% due within 24 months [7].
SpaceX has $62.96B of backlog, 67% within a year [2], and Musk says SpaceX rents at spot-like rates on short contracts and aims to split compute about 50/50 between internal use and rental [6]. Anthropic's S-1 shows what that means: up to $120.5B of SpaceXAI compute, about $3.10B a month once capacity is delivered in December 2026, but with initial non-cancelable periods ending Jan and Mar 2027 and then a 90-day exit for either party [10].
One unnamed customer was 34.5% of Q3 revenue ($5.03B) [2]
What to watch
- Lease close and pricing before Dec 31: a rate near 8.30% on the junior tranche would put SpaceX inside the neocloud range.
- Q4 capex against the $35B to $40B guide, and whether Q1 2027 revenue of $33B to $37B arrives [6].
- Whether the Jan and Mar 2027 exits are used; they are the first test of five-year debt against 90-day contracts.
- CoreWeave and Nebius Q3 filings, which will refresh debt that is still dated Jun 30 here.
Peers
| Company | Period end | EV / EBITDA | Debt $B | Cash $B | Debt / EBITDA | Capex / revenue | EV / (OCF - capex - stock pay) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPCX | 2026-09-30 | 194.60x | 37.86 | 51.29 | 3.72x | 171.5% | n.m. (negative) |
| SPCX pro forma +$40B lease | 2026-09-30 | 198.53x | 77.86 | 51.29 | 7.65x | 171.5% | n.m. (negative) |
| CRWV | 2026-06-30 | 15.95x | 35.07 | 5.52 | 9.33x | 271% | n.m. (negative) |
| NBIS | 2026-06-30 | n.m. (EBITDA $0.08B) | 8.55 | 8.04 | n.m. | 822.2% | n.m. (negative) |
| IREN | 2026-06-30 | n.m. (negative) | 7.59 | 5.90 | n.m. | 424% | n.m. (negative) |
| ORCL | 2026-08-31 | 13.85x | 125.34 | 36.37 | 3.69x | 105.4% | n.m. (negative) |
Method: EV is shares times the Oct 26 close plus debt at carrying value minus cash and equivalents; leases are excluded. EBITDA is GAAP operating income plus depreciation and amortization, trailing twelve months.
SpaceX's debt includes $12.90B of other financings, mostly a related-party failed sale-leaseback; counting its $38.56B of securities as cash would lower EV / EBITDA to 190.81x. On the latest quarter alone, annualized EBITDA of $25.74B implies 76.99x.
CoreWeave's balance sheet predates its $4.20B convertible notes sold Sep 22 [8].
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Anthropic's S-1 shows $16.29B of first-half revenue, $3.45B of free cash flow and $1.26B left after stock pay. It also caps public holders at 49.9% of the vote, sets price and share count at pricing, and names about $637.00B of compute commitments.