SpaceX prepares $20 billion bond sale to fund AI expansion

SpaceX was preparing to meet investors as early as next week about a bond sale of at least $20 billion, a deal that would mark the company’s first investment-grade dollar bond offering. The financing would likely be used to refinance a $20 billion bridge loan SpaceX took out earlier this year after acquiring xAI in February.

The timing matters because SpaceX has just come off a headline-grabbing public debut. On June 12, shares jumped 19% and pushed the company’s value past $2 trillion, making SpaceX the sixth-biggest U.S. company by market value after a record-setting $75 billion IPO. The bond sale would show whether that stock-market enthusiasm extends to the debt market, where lenders will have to decide how much faith to place in Elon Musk’s private-space-and-AI story when the ask is no longer equity but long-dated borrowing.

The bridge financing already gave a glimpse of the company’s capital structure. SpaceX’s total debt stood at $20.07 billion as of March 2, down from $22.05 billion at the end of 2024, after the new borrowing helped replace older obligations. The bridge loan refinanced five existing debt facilities, including two term loans tied to X Corp and three borrowings by xAI, and was arranged by a syndicate led by Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Those same banks are expected to be involved in the bond transaction.

SpaceX’s AI push helps explain why the company is reaching for more capital now. Building out that strategy requires heavy spending on data centers, computing hardware and power infrastructure, costs that can quickly outgrow internal cash generation even for a company with SpaceX’s scale and profile. A bond offering of this size would give investors a clearer look at how much leverage the market is willing to tolerate for a business that is still expanding across space launch, satellite infrastructure and artificial intelligence.

If the sale goes ahead, it will do more than refinance debt. It will reset expectations for how the largest private technology companies fund their next phase, with the bond market becoming the newest test of whether the valuation boom can be matched by disciplined access to capital.