Elon Musk declares Nvidia exclusive chipmaking partner as SpaceX stock tumbles 12%

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SpaceX announced it will exclusively build on Nvidia's Vera Rubin architecture during its first earnings call as a public company. While Nvidia stock climbed 4%, SpaceX shares dropped 12% as investors reacted to massive $18.4 billion capital expenditures that exceeded expectations.

SpaceX Names Nvidia Exclusive Partner During Inaugural Earnings Call

Elon Musk announced during SpaceX's first earnings call as a public company that the rocket manufacturer will exclusively use Nvidia's GPUs for its AI infrastructure buildout

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. The decision marks a significant shift, as Musk had previously indicated in May that SpaceX would use both AMD and Nvidia processors in its hardware buildout

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. "We've decided to build exclusively on Nvidia because we think the Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture," Musk stated on the SpaceX earnings call

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. He emphasized that Nvidia's systems are superior to competitors and praised the close cooperation between the two companies on multiple levels

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Market Reaction Shows AI Spending Paradox

Nvidia stock rising became the story as shares climbed more than 4% following Musk's announcement, marking the chipmaker's fifth consecutive day of gains

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. Meanwhile, SpaceX shares tumbled more than 12% despite reporting better-than-expected top and bottom-line figures

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. The divergence highlights a critical pattern in AI expansion: hyperscalers face investor pressure for their capital expenditures, while chipmakers get rewarded as more money flows their way

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. SpaceX's second-quarter capital expenditures of $18.4 billion blew past estimates, triggering the stock decline

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. AMD shares also dropped more than 7% following earnings that showed capital expenditures increasing to $808 million in the second quarter, more than double the previous year

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Aggressive AI Computing Expansion Plans

Musk outlined ambitious plans for SpaceX's AI computing platform expansion during the earnings call. The company intends to end 2026 with over 2 gigawatts of compute power and expects it to be "several times higher" by the end of 2027

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. Cumulative online compute capacity may reach closer to 10 gigawatts than 5 gigawatts by the end of next year, though Musk acknowledged that if a quarter of projects slip, SpaceX would likely land "close to 15" gigawatts rather than the 20-gigawatt target he floated

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. JPMorgan highlighted that SpaceX expects to receive a "very significant percentage" of Nvidia's GPU shipments in 2027, supporting plans to rapidly scale AI compute capacity from more than 2 gigawatts by the end of 2026 to between 5 and 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027

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Vera Rubin NVL72 Deployment Strategy

SpaceX plans to launch Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 system starting next year for both terrestrial and orbital applications

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. "We think the design of the NVL72 VR computer is a much better design than is typical than, say, having a standard rack-style design, and so we expect to actually deploy this on the ground, as well as in orbit," Musk explained

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. The company will use Nvidia's Vera Rubin architecture in its planned Starmind AI satellites, with each satellite equipped with Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs to deliver datacenter-class processing power from orbit

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. This partnership carries added significance because SpaceX had been notably absent from Nvidia's original space computing platform launch in March 2026, which named six initial partners

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Revenue Implications for Nvidia

Analysts reacted enthusiastically to the potential revenue impact for Nvidia. Chris Caso of Wolfe Research calculated that Musk's comments suggest SpaceX would add about 6 gigawatts of additional Nvidia compute power in 2027, which at $35 billion per gigawatt "translates to close to $200 billion in potential revenue for NVDA in calendar year 2027"

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. Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes wrote that if credible, "this is the kind of a spending intention that could finally get Jensen Huang to formally forecast that he has a line of sight to $1T in revenue well before 2030"

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. The announcement could substantiate Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's blockbuster prediction from March that the company's flagship processors could generate $1 trillion in annual revenue through 2027

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. Nvidia is scheduled to report fiscal second-quarter results on August 26, when Huang could either confirm or adjust the scale of projected demand

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Questions Around Execution and Financing

Musk's economic projections for the AI infrastructure buildout rest partly on what he openly called guesswork. When asked by Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas about his confidence level, Musk said his "best guess" for annual revenue each gigawatt of Nvidia's Rubin systems could generate was "somewhere between 30 and $50" billion, then added, "This is just a guess"

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. Wall Street now debates how quickly SpaceX can build this infrastructure, how it will be financed, and whether financing will involve circular deals potentially including Nvidia itself

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. "This commentary will be all anyone talks about, along with debates around Elon's ability to actually deliver it within a realistic timeframe, how it will be financed, and what role Nvidia may play in that financing," Reitzes at Melius wrote

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. Jim Cramer, one of the most consistently bullish mainstream commentators on Nvidia, reposted Musk's commitment with a five-word response: "and there it is"

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. Musk's companies including Tesla and xAI, now part of SpaceX, have used Nvidia AI hardware for years, though Tesla and SpaceX are planning to build a jointly owned factory to make their own AI chips in the future

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