NVIDIA Corp. revealed a major equity position in Elon Musk’s SpaceX worth approximately $21 billion as of the end of the second quarter, highlighting a strategy in which the chip giant finances the very customers buying its artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, NVIDIA holds 122.8 million Class A shares in the rocket manufacturer, which completed its public market debut in June. The disclosure positions NVIDIA as the sixth-largest investor in SpaceX, trailing Musk’s controlling $850 billion stake and Alphabet Inc.’s roughly $78 billion position.
The multibillion-dollar position was acquired through a series of corporate maneuvers rather than open-market transactions.
In January, NVIDIA invested $10 billion into Musk’s AI startup, xAI, during a $20 billion Series E funding round. Weeks later, SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock transaction valued at $1.25 trillion, automatically converting NVIDIA’s startup equity into Class A SpaceX stock.
The investment has already yielded significant financial returns. Originally resulting from a $5 billion initial valuation baseline, the stake stood at $21 billion on June 30 when SpaceX shares closed at $170.86. Recent market fluctuations have since trimmed the value; with SpaceX closing at $140 on Friday, NVIDIA’s holding is currently valued at roughly $17.2 billion.
Despite the recent dip, SpaceX represents NVIDIA’s second-largest disclosed stock holding behind its position in Intel Corp., currently valued at $22 billion. Together, Intel and SpaceX account for nearly 80% of NVIDIA’s disclosed equity portfolio.
The massive equity ties coincide with deepening operational links between the two entities. Speaking on SpaceX’s recent second-quarter earnings call, its first as a public company, Musk confirmed that SpaceX will build its AI data centers exclusively using NVIDIA architecture.
Musk cited NVIDIA’s forthcoming Vera Rubin GPU line as offering superior capabilities for training and inference, adding that SpaceX expects to receive a “significant allocation” of the new processors next year.
While tech giants Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. have backed AI developers like OpenAI and Anthropic, NVIDIA’s circular model — funding infrastructure buildouts for key enterprise clients who then purchase its graphics processing units — continues to expand its reach across the tech landscape.
In parallel developments, NVIDIA is reportedly recalibrating other major customer commitments, including scaling back a proposed financial guarantee for OpenAI’s planned 10-gigawatt data center campus in Ohio to under $120 billion. However, its multibillion-dollar bet on Musk’s integrated space and AI operations underscores the company’s aggressive efforts to lock in long-term demand for its next-generation silicon.
