SpaceX seeks funding to buy Nvidia chips, FT says

By Harrison Miller SpaceX is looking to raise $40 billion to purchase a batch of Nvidia artificial intelligence chips, according to reports on Tuesday. The news comes as CEO Elon Musk announced changes to the Grok Bot AI assistant. The rocket company also won regulatory approval to launch an additional 15,000 satellites into orbit for its Starlink Mobile service. SPCX stock slid early Wednesday, following a three-day rally Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX, is looking to raise about $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade debt to purchase Nvidia-made AI chips, the Financial Times first reported Tuesday citing unnamed sources. The news comes as SpaceX looks to build out its terrestrial AI data center complexes and plans to deploy orbital data centers in the coming years. Musk previously announced SpaceX will build its data center and AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia architecture. Meanwhile, SpaceX aims to build out 2 gigawatts of AI compute by the end of the year, up from 1.4GW at the end of Q2. Musk on Wednesday morning announced an update to the Grok Bot AI assistant in a social media post. Going forward, SpaceX will use "the best back end model for any given task," including turning to rival APIs such as Claude Opus 5.5, Midjourney and Suno. "Whatever is most likely to give you the best outcome," Musk wrote. Grok clarified in replies that it will pick the strongest model available for each specific task, or whatever works best on a case-by-case basis. SPACEX WINS FCC STARLINK APPROVAL In other SpaceX news, the Federal Communications Commission granted approval to launch an additional 15,000 next-generation Starlink satellites as part of its Starlink Mobile service, PCMag first reported. The second-generation Starlink V2 satellites will provide direct-to-cell connectivity as part of its orbital constellation with 5G speeds at 150 megabytes (Mbps) per user. The FCC also approved the satellites' use of the radio spectrum that SpaceX is acquiring from EchoStar, as well as some spectrum from T-Mobile. The approvals could pave the way for SpaceX to compete against wireless service giants like AT&T and Verizon. The regulator's grant allows SpaceX to orbit the satellites as low as 326 kilometers from Earth, which appears to be a new low compared to approvals for the first-generation satellites, according to reports. The lower orbit is intended to help reduce latency. SpaceX filed for approval for this batch of satellites in September 2025, according to reports. As part of its broader constellation plans, SpaceX is seeking approval to launch 100,000 Starlink Gen3 satellites and deploy up to 1 million Starmind AI satellites. SPACEX STOCK SPCX stock slid more than 2% early Wednesday, poised to pare some of its gains from the past few days. SpaceX rallied Monday after Musk confirmed reports that the company is in talks with Taiwan Semiconductor to potentially collaborate on the Terafab chip man