AI in action · Markets
Meta Sells Stock, SpaceX Leases Chips: AI's $135B Monday
On October 26 Meta said it would raise up to $95 billion in stock, and SpaceX agreed to lease about $40 billion of AI chips from an Apollo affiliate. They are two very different ways of paying for the same build-out.
Monday, October 26, put two answers to the AI industry's biggest question, who pays for the hardware, side by side. Meta said it would raise up to $95 billion in equity, its largest fundraising of that kind, according to Reuters as published by The Globe and Mail. About $35 billion was launched straight away: roughly $22.5 billion of Class A common stock and $12.5 billion of depositary shares representing mandatory convertible preferred stock, Business Insider reported via Yahoo Finance. The other $60 billion would come through an at-the-market programme, selling shares gradually at market prices, once the new nonvoting Class C stock starts trading, expected in the first quarter of 2027.
Some of the buyers are Meta's own suppliers. Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom indicated interest in buying up to $5 billion of the Class A shares in total, acting individually rather than as a group, UPI reported, and Meta said the indications are not binding. The need is visible in the balance sheet: third-quarter free cash flow was negative $2.12 billion, its first negative result in more than a decade, cash and securities of $82.45 billion roughly matched $80.92 billion of long-term debt, and Meta has committed to about $825 billion of future spending. The shares closed 1.9% lower. "We expect investors to continue to question the financing and potential for future capital raises," analysts at William Blair wrote.
SpaceX went the other way. An affiliate of Apollo Global Management will buy AI chips and server hardware and lease them to SpaceX, with total principal payments of about $40 billion, Reuters reported. Each lease runs a little over five years from the day the equipment arrives; SpaceX aims to finalise the deal by the end of 2026, with leases starting in the first half of 2027 as the chips, Nvidia's Vera Rubin processors, are delivered. Funds managed by BlackRock, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and KKR made anchor commitments, and the companies called it the largest committed GPU financing transaction. Elon Musk posted that SpaceX had "closed" the financing; chief financial officer Bret Johnsen said fourth-quarter capital spending is still expected at $35 billion to $40 billion.
One bank sat in the middle of both, and of a third deal. Goldman Sachs co-led Meta's offering, was sole structuring agent on the SpaceX lease and is lead-left bookrunner on Anthropic's IPO, filed the same morning; the three add up to at least $210 billion, Briefs Finance reported. Equity underwriting at the five largest banks is up 48% this year. Fees on that scale explain why Wall Street is eager to finance the build-out; they say nothing about whether the build-out pays.
For investors the two structures carry different risks. New shares dilute existing holders but never have to be repaid. A lease is a fixed payment schedule on hardware that loses value as each new chip generation arrives, and the payments are due whether or not the chips earn their keep. Musk himself said debt markets have largely closed to companies without substantial revenue outside AI data centres, predicting "guppy-level death and consolidation" among more than 200 smaller GPU cloud providers. Monday showed that the largest names can still raise almost any sum; the test comes when the payments fall due.
Sources: Reuters via The Globe and Mail — Meta to raise up to $95-billion in equity to fund costly AI expansion (Oct 26, 2026); Business Insider via Yahoo Finance — Meta looks to raise up to $95 billion from stock sales to fund its huge AI build-out (Oct 26, 2026); UPI — Meta announced plan to raise $95 billion to build AI infrastructure (Oct 26, 2026); Reuters via Investing.com — SpaceX enters $40 billion deal with Apollo for AI chip financing (Oct 26, 2026); Yahoo Finance — SpaceX secures record $40 billion GPU lease deal with Apollo (Oct 26, 2026); Briefs Finance — Goldman lines up three mega AI financings, from Meta to SpaceX to Anthropic (Oct 26, 2026)