SpaceX shares closed 2.1% higher on Tuesday, but the gain tells two stories at once. Reuters reported that the company is in talks to secure access to at least 80,000 US mobile sites for a planned wireless network — a headline that lifted the stock premarket and, according to Reuters, weighed on established US telecom carriers as investors began pricing SpaceX as a potential rival on the ground.
That enthusiasm ran alongside a more sobering thread. Bloomberg reported the same day that a planned $40 billion AI financing is hitting obstacles, with credit-market volatility and higher funding costs complicating negotiations. The two developments sketch the same tension: SpaceX is expanding on several fronts at once, and the price of capital for that buildout is rising.
Spectrum, Sites, and a Deal Not Yet Closed
The infrastructure push has a concrete anchor. On October 8, SpaceX agreed to buy the nationwide 800 MHz spectrum portfolio of Grain Management for roughly $8 billion, a transaction that still requires FCC approval. The site negotiations, which include talks with Crown Castle, are not a signed contract either. Both pieces point in one direction — a network blending satellites and terrestrial infrastructure for Starlink Mobile — but neither is a finished asset.
TD Cowen estimates a nationwide terrestrial network would cost more than $80 billion and take several years to build. That figure is not a confirmed SpaceX spending plan, yet it frames the strategic question sharply. Building from scratch would add a hefty capital burden on top of the AI business; leasing access to an existing network could cut the required outlay considerably.
The AI Bill and the Off-Balance-Sheet Wrapper
The financing under discussion is structured to keep Nvidia chips off SpaceX’s balance sheet. A special purpose vehicle would hold the assets, with Goldman Sachs sounding out investors including Apollo. Atlas SP is slated to manage the vehicle, and Pimco is weighing a stake. Nothing is signed — this remains a proposal in negotiation, not a secured source of funds.
Earlier talks contemplated yields in the mid-8% range for the subordinated tranche, and pricing discussions have reopened amid current market conditions, according to Bloomberg. SpaceX also carries roughly $13 billion in debt booked after a failed sale-and-leaseback treatment. None of this proves the new financing will fall through. It does argue against mistaking legal packaging for a reduced funding need.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
The stakes are visible in the guidance. SpaceX expects fourth-quarter capital expenditures of $35–40 billion and has guided to first-quarter 2027 revenue of $33–37 billion. Both are forecasts, not results — and the gap between them depends on buildout and customer demand arriving on schedule.
Strong Numbers, With Caveats
The operating base is real. In the third quarter of 2026, SpaceX reported $14.6 billion in revenue, up 161% year over year, and net income of $4.4 billion. The Superintelligence segment alone posted $7.56 billion in revenue and $431 million in operating profit, while Starlink counted 13.6 million subscribers.
Those figures give the expansion plans economic backing, but they describe the existing business rather than the new network. Higher financing costs weigh on the investment math, and falling rental prices for computing power would add further headwind. Power and cooling bottlenecks could slow the buildout as well.
Analysts are already adjusting. Phillip Securities upgraded the stock from Sell to Buy and lifted its price target from $75 to $250, citing AI revenue that came in ahead of expectations. That call is a reminder that Tuesday’s move cannot be pinned on the wireless report alone: it landed on a business with sharply higher revenue and a fresh re-rating from at least one research house.
What the stock has done is acknowledge a possibility. Turning tower talks and a pending spectrum purchase into usable infrastructure — and financing the AI buildout at a tolerable cost — is the work still ahead.
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