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The figure comes from a document filed by SpaceX with the American stock market watchdog, the SEC. According to Reuters, Elon Musk's company signed a cloud services contract with Google: 920 million dollars per month, or around 793 million euros, from October 2026 to June 2029. Over the entire period, we are talking about nearly 30 billion dollars. And the funny thing is the meaning of the transaction.

Normally, Google sells cloud. There, he bought some from a rocket manufacturer. According to CNBC, the contract provides access to approximately 110,000 Nvidia graphics cards, plus processors and memory, hosted in SpaceX data centers. Concretely, these GPU (the chips that run the AI) are those of the Colossus supercomputers, in Memphis, inherited from xAI: Musk's AI start-up behind the Grok chatbot, absorbed by SpaceX last February.

Why Google will rent computing from a rival

The reason is shortage. Google lacks the power to run its AI, and it's running out of it now. Questioned by CNBC, a Google Cloud spokesperson explains that this is a short-term agreement, to have “transition capacity” in the face of higher-than-expected demand on Gemini Enterprise (its AI agent platform for businesses). Translation: in-house servers are no longer enough, so we rent elsewhere, even from someone with whom we are also a competitor.

And the contract says it clearly: the AI models, content and processed data remain the property of Google. SpaceX only lends the machines.

The schedule is also tight: if SpaceX does not deliver the promised GPUs before September 30, 2026, Google can slam the door after a month of grace, or settle for what is available by paying less. And from 2027, everyone can leave with 90 days’ notice. In short, nothing like a marriage: it’s a luxury repair.

A maneuver a few days before the IPO

The timing is no coincidence. SpaceX is aiming for an IPO on the Nasdaq this week, under the ticker SPCX, at a valuation around $1.77 trillion: the biggest IPO in history.

A ten-figure contract with Google, just before the big day, strengthens the “SpaceX is also an AI player” story sold to investors. This is not the first: in May, it was Anthropic which rented the full power of Colossus 1. Taken together, these two contracts are worth more than 70 billion dollars.

To give the scale: five years ago, the balance of power was reversed. It was Google that provided computing to SpaceX to deliver Starlink's internet, installing ground stations in its data centers. Today, SpaceX is cashing in. The Starlink annuity finances the rockets, xAI provides the machines, and Google pays to use them, even by going to a company linked to a boss who spends his time tackling the competition.

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