Shares of Oracle slid 6% to ARS 71,700 on Tuesday as three risks collided: mounting doubts about the company's ability to finance its enormous AI data-center buildout, power-supply delays at its flagship construction project, and fresh evidence that its biggest cloud customer, OpenAI, may be generating less revenue than Wall Street assumed.
• An $18 Billion Loan Is Already Trading at a Discount
Oracle invoked force majeure — a legal shield against uncontrollable delays — on Project Jupiter, a 2.45-gigawatt data-center campus in New Mexico, after the roughly $18 billion in construction financing began trading at 89–91 cents on the dollar. That discount means lenders want extra compensation for the risk the facility won't open on schedule in 2028. Oracle's total debt has ballooned from $99.5 billion in November 2024 to $169.1 billion by August 2026 , and its AI cloud capex hit $55.7 billion in fiscal 2026, up from $21.2 billion the prior year . The result: negative free cash flow of $23.7 billion for the fiscal year .
• Nearly Half of Oracle's Backlog Rides on One Customer
A Financial Times report showed OpenAI's annualized revenue approaching $50 billion at September's end — roughly $20 billion below the $70 billion figure previously circulated. That matters because the OpenAI relationship represents roughly 45% of Oracle's $664 billion backlog of contracted future revenue . If OpenAI grows more slowly, the pace at which Oracle converts that backlog into actual cash could disappoint.
• The Spending Won't Slow Down
Oracle guided to $70 billion in net project cash outlay for FY2027, with gross capex of $90–$95 billion before customer prepayments . It expects to raise approximately $40 billion through debt and equity financing this fiscal year . That dilutes existing shareholders via stock sales and adds interest costs — interest expense already rose 55% to $1.4 billion last quarter .
• Macro Headwinds Aren't Helping A hotter-than-expected September CPI print pushed Treasury yields higher, making Oracle's mountain of debt more expensive to service and reducing appetite for growth stories that burn cash today in hope of future profits. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell 0.64% and 0.91%, amplifying the company-specific selloff.
Oracle's cloud revenue is genuinely booming — Q1 FY27 total revenue rose 30% to $19.3 billion, with cloud infrastructure up 121% . The open question is whether growth at any cost can survive a market now demanding proof that spending translates into free cash flow, not just backlog.