Nvidia’s Friday 13F disclosed a nearly $21 billion stake in SpaceX and a $30 billion position in Intel, two companies that have each publicly committed to building their AI data centers on Nvidia silicon. The filing, which reports holdings as of June 30, reads less like a portfolio snapshot and more like a schematic of the AI boom’s circular financing.

The SpaceX line represents 122.8 million shares. The Intel line is 214.8 million shares, marked up from a $5 billion cost basis established last September when the two companies announced a strategic AI infrastructure partnership. Intel’s stock has roughly quintupled over the past twelve months. One quarter earlier, that same holding was worth about $9.5 billion.

Elon Musk, on SpaceX’s second-quarter earnings call earlier this month, said SpaceX would exclusively use Nvidia chips in its AI data centers and flagged that he expects a significant allocation of Nvidia’s forthcoming Vera Rubin GPUs next year. Nvidia is now both a shareholder and a supplier to the buyer. This isn’t new for the company. In January, Nvidia put $10 billion into a $20 billion xAI funding round; in February, SpaceX acquired xAI in a deal valued at $1.25 trillion, folding one Nvidia equity bet inside another.

The pattern extends further down the filing. Nvidia has taken a $2 billion position in Coherent, a $1 billion stake in Nokia (announced last October to accelerate AI-RAN work), and a $2 billion Synopsys position established in December. Total equity spending in the first four months of 2026 topped $40 billion.

The 2000 fiber-optic buildout ran on similar mechanics: vendor financing from Lucent and Nortel to the carriers buying their equipment, booked as revenue, marked as assets. It worked until the buyers couldn’t service the debt.

By Friday’s close, SpaceX shares had drifted from the $170.86 June snapshot to $140, trimming Nvidia’s stake to roughly $17.2 billion. Marks move. The circularity doesn’t.

Sources