--- title: "Oracle's $165 billion New Mexico campus permit slipped past December 7 as lenders sell the debt" description: "Oracle's $664 billion backlog assumes its biggest Stargate campus switches on. The New Mexico air-permit decision just slipped past December 7, the project's lenders are heading for the exits, and the stock's 8% drop was blamed on politics instead." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Data Center" published: 2026-11-06T16:18:32.366Z modified: 2026-11-06T16:18:32.366Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/oracle-s-165-billion-new-mexico-campus-permit-slipped-past-december-7-as-lenders-sell-the-debt language: en keywords: "Oracle, Data Centers, Project Finance, Stargate, Regulation" --- # Oracle's $165 billion New Mexico campus permit slipped past December 7 as lenders sell the debt > Oracle's $664 billion backlog assumes its biggest Stargate campus switches on. The New Mexico air-permit decision just slipped past December 7, the project's lenders are heading for the exits, and the stock's 8% drop was blamed on politics instead. The calendar on [Oracle](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/oracle)'s largest data center just moved, and the market has not priced it. [Bloomberg reported on November 5](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-05/oracle-data-center-developer-waives-key-air-permit-deadline) that Yucca Growth Infrastructure LLC, the power developer behind Oracle's planned $165 billion New Mexico complex, waived its right to a November 23 decision deadline on the state air permit its gas-fired plant needs [1]. The decision now follows a public hearing on December 7 [1]. [Oracle's stock fell about 8%](https://www.tradingkey.com/news/market-movers/262283066-market-movers-orcl-20261105) the same day, but [the wire blamed the Democratic sweep](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/oracle-sinks-7-everpure-down-234025049.html) and Oracle's capital intensity, not the schedule [3][4]. That split is the trade. ## Three parties now hold the switch-on date The permit is not a local detail. Oracle is the main tenant at Project Jupiter, the New Mexico campus in the [OpenAI](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/openai)-Oracle-SoftBank Stargate venture, and its $664 billion backlog is a promise about campuses that switch on and keep switching on [2]. Three parties now hold the date: the state air regulator, the lenders selling the project's debt, and Oracle itself, which in September [served the developer a force majeure notice](https://theinference.org/article/oracle-can-delay-rent-on-its-165-billion-stargate-campus-not-exit-it-nov-23-decides), a clause that could let it delay payments if the campus misses its 2028 start [2]. Lenders are already voting. An unnamed holder is [auctioning about $500 million of data-center loans](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/500m-mystery-seller-dumping-data-230000843.html), including a $25 million slice backing Project Jupiter, with bids due November 19 [2]. The site's $18 billion of loans were quoted at 89 to 91 cents on the dollar in September [2]. ## Oracle has already paid for the build Free cash flow ran to negative $23.7 billion in fiscal 2026, total debt with leases stood at $169.1 billion on August 31, and [this week's $20 billion raise](https://theinference.org/article/oracle-caps-ai-fundraising-at-20-billion-and-promises-30-billion-of-free-cash-flow-in-fiscal-2029) exhausted its cap through fiscal 2030 [3]. Any delay means collecting later on money already spent [3]. *Chart: **Oracle's capex has climbed tenfold in two years as its debt pile followed** Column chart of Oracle quarterly capex and total debt from the quarter ended May 2024 to the quarter ended August 2026* *Quarterly capex and total debt in billions of dollars, from Oracle's SEC filings; debt includes leases. The draft reports free cash flow of negative $23.7 billion for fiscal 2026 and total debt with leases of $169.1 billion on August 31, 2026. Source: Oracle, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 6 November 2026. [5]* The stock trades at 14 times forward earnings against a five-year average of 21x [3]. Wait for December 7 [3]. If the permit clears, the cheap multiple is the story. If it slips again, the force majeure clause goes live and the project's loans reprice before Oracle's mid-December results do it for you. ## Takeaway Oracle's 8% drop was blamed on politics, but the real news is that the New Mexico air-permit decision slipped past December 7 while lenders auction off the campus's debt. If the permit clears, the 14x multiple is cheap; if it slips again, the force majeure clause goes live. ## Sources 1. [Bloomberg, "Oracle Data Center Developer Waives Key Air Permit Deadline", 5 November 2026](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-05/oracle-data-center-developer-waives-key-air-permit-deadline) 2. [Yahoo Finance (BeInCrypto), "$500M Mystery Seller: Who's Dumping Data-Center Loans After AI Stock Crash?", 5 November 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/500m-mystery-seller-dumping-data-230000843.html) 3. [Yahoo Finance, "Oracle Sinks 7%, Everpure Down 15% as Midterms Hit AI Build-Out", 5 November 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/oracle-sinks-7-everpure-down-234025049.html) 4. [TradingKey, "Oracle Corp Stock (ORCL) Moved Down by 8.05% on Nov 5: Key Drivers Unveiled", 5 November 2026](https://www.tradingkey.com/news/market-movers/262283066-market-movers-orcl-20261105) 5. [Oracle, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 6 November 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001341439) --- Oracle's $165 billion New Mexico campus permit slipped past December 7 as lenders sell the debt — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/oracle-s-165-billion-new-mexico-campus-permit-slipped-past-december-7-as-lenders-sell-the-debt