View / Apollo’s twin deals reveal Wall Street’s AI money problem - Semafor

There is a lot of money in the world. Is it enough for AI? One player in the great spend-a-thon of 2026 provides us with two different answers.

Apollo’s deal to buy a stake in Abu Dhabi’s government-backed asset manager, Mubadala Capital, is a bet that the real shortage facing Wall Street right now isn’t capital, but places to invest it. Apollo’s retirement arm takes in $1 billion a week that it has to find something to do with, and its origination engine can’t keep up. By investing in Mubadala, it gets first dibs on a steady stream of deals. The takeaway is that an oversupply of capital is chasing too few opportunities.

Apollo’s $40 billion chip lease to SpaceX suggests the opposite. When we checked in on SpaceX’s financing six days ago, the riskiest piece appeared likely to find takers at about 3.5 percentage points over a baseline US Treasury rate, steep but reasonable. By the time it closed this week, the spread had blown out to 3.95 points — outrageously expensive for SpaceX, which carries an investment-grade rating. Those eye-watering terms make clear that while the AI money is there, it now costs a lot more than it did a few weeks ago.

Capital providers are wising up to the risks of the AI trade, even if they have the money to burn. “I won’t say they were dumb until four weeks ago, but…” said one Wall Street executive, “they’ve gotten a lot smarter, fast.”