SpaceX Wants $40B to Buy Nvidia Chips While Ray Dalio Holds the Defibrillator 🚀

SpaceX is in talks to raise $40 billion in new debt to purchase Nvidia chips, a financing package that includes $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade bonds led by Apollo, according to the Financial Times. The request comes days after billionaire Ray Dalio warned that borrowing to fund artificial intelligence has pushed markets to the edge of a classic bubble burst.

Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, told a Forbes conference in Singapore on Wednesday that AI fits the pattern of past manias in which debt and rising rates eventually force investors with paper gains to sell. "We're in the part of the cycle that is before that but approaching that. I think we're close to that," he said. The funding push follows SpaceX's June stock market debut that raised nearly $86 billion and a subsequent $25 billion bond sale.

SpaceX absorbed Elon Musk's AI firm xAI in February and now spends more on AI than its rocket and Starlink businesses generate in revenue. The company carries a BBB credit rating, two notches below Meta and Alphabet. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas wrote in August that SpaceX may need to borrow about $80 billion a year through 2035, The Motley Fool reported. All 35 Wall Street analysts covering Nvidia rate NVDA a buy with an average target of $324.20, while coverage of SpaceX (SPCX) is more divided: 28 buys, five holds and two sells, with a 12-month average target of $216.21 against a Friday close of $162.57.

The wider AI buildout carries comparable obligations elsewhere. Anthropic has $518 billion in future computing commitments and OpenAI has $665 billion, according to The Motley Fool, while Oracle shares slid on Thursday after questions about OpenAI's revenue. SpaceX shares closed Friday about 28% below their 52-week high, with 1.31 billion insider shares set to unlock after third-quarter results. The Motley Fool's Jeremy Bowman wrote that SpaceX would likely fall first in any bubble burst, though he questioned how imminent such a break would be. Dalio's central variable remains unchanged: if interest rates keep climbing, the pressure on highly indebted AI backers to liquidate positions will only intensify.