Oracle Moves to Defer the Rent on a Data Center It Says Is On Schedule

The notice moves the bill one seat down the table

Oracle sent a force majeure notice↗ on 24 September to the developer of Project Jupiter, the Stargate campus in Doña Ana County, New Mexico ²⁴. The ask is simple: if the campus misses its planned 2028 opening, Oracle's rent does not start ¹. If the rent never starts, what happens to the lenders?

The developer, STACK Infrastructure, is a Blue Owl Capital unit, and the $18 billion of loans behind the site were already quoted at 89 to 91 cents on the dollar↗ ⁴³. That is the lending leg of the stack charted in The Inference's *Oracle's $664 Billion Backlog Runs on Three Balance Sheets*, taking its first mark-to-market hit ⁴. Oracle's own quarter explains the reflex: $28.5 billion of capital spending against negative $5.4 billion of free cash flow in the quarter to 31 August ⁵.

The power still has no permit

The site's power plan has been rebuilt once already. New Mexico's land commissioner rejected the feeding pipeline's right-of-way↗ in March and again in July, which forced a switch from 2.2 gigawatts of gas turbines to 2.45 gigawatts of Bloom Energy fuel cells ⁶⁴. The cells still need gas, and earliest pipeline service has slipped to 1 February 2027 ⁶.

The site also lacks the air permit for the fuel cells themselves. The New Mexico Supreme Court paused that process on 23 August while it weighs two challenges from environmental groups, and the state must rule by 23 November ⁴⁷. Oracle wrote itself aggressive commitments with little wiggle room on this campus ⁸. Force majeure is the wiggle.

Every date has already slipped

The Financial Times puts the build at least seven months late. SemiAnalysis moves the first phase from 2027 to 2029, and state officials say nothing opens before 2030 ³. A power-related force majeure event could win Oracle up to three years of rent deferral, back rent still owed later, and until completion STACK collects no rent at all ⁶³. The market marked the whole chain in one morning, hardest at the far end:

Oracle is down 28.6 percent this year↗, the worst tech stock in the S&P 500 ⁹³.

Both sides insist this is routine

"Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule," Oracle says, pointing to 3,600 workers on site ¹⁶. Blue Owl's line: the notice "does not change the financial commitments to this multi-year project" ¹. Bloom says it stays committed to the contract and the timeline ¹.

The loan price has a calmer reading: Oracle's own bonds fair-value near 84.6 cents, so project loans at 89 to 91 price the campus roughly where its tenant is priced ⁴. The tell lands on 23 November: grant the air permit and the loans have a path back toward par; deny it and 2028 stops being a schedule. New Mexico keeps saying no, and Wall Street holds the paper.