Nvidia's Second-Biggest Holding Isn't a Chip Company

Keypoints:

• • Nvidia disclosed a $21 billion stake in SpaceX at the end of Q2 2026
  • The stake traces back to Nvidia's $10 billion investment in xAI in January 2026
  • SpaceX acquired xAI in February in an all-stock deal valued at $1.25 trillion
  • Nvidia now owns about 122.8 million SpaceX Class A shares
  • It's Nvidia's second-largest holding, after a roughly $30 billion Intel stake
  • Musk has committed SpaceX to using Nvidia chips exclusively for its AI data centers

Nvidia just revealed it's sitting on a $21 billion stake in SpaceX. The position didn't come from buying SpaceX stock directly. It came from a completely different deal, one that turned an AI chip investment into a rocket company windfall almost by accident.

The story starts in January. Nvidia put $10 billion into Elon Musk's AI company xAI as part of a larger funding round. At the time, it looked like a straightforward bet on a language model company, nothing more.

Then, in February, SpaceX acquired xAI outright. The deal was structured entirely in stock and valued at $1.25 trillion. Every xAI share converted into SpaceX stock, and Nvidia's position rode along with it, landing at roughly 122.8 million Class A shares.

When SpaceX went public in June, those shares finally got a real market price. By the end of Q2, the stake was worth about $21 billion. That makes it Nvidia's second-largest disclosed holding, trailing only a roughly $30 billion position in Intel.

The relationship goes further than ownership, too. Musk has said SpaceX will run its AI data centers exclusively on Nvidia hardware going forward. That means Nvidia isn't just an investor in SpaceX anymore. 

It's also becoming one of SpaceX's biggest customers, holding stakes on both sides of the same relationship at once, a structure that's becoming increasingly common across the AI industry as chipmakers and their customers tangle their finances together.