Oracle sent a “force majeure” notice tied to Project Jupiter, a Stargate data center campus under construction in New Mexico, Bloomberg first reported. CNBC, TechCrunch and SiliconANGLE independently confirmed the notice. Oracle shares fell more than 3% on Thursday after the news broke.
The notice went to the campus's developer, a unit of investment firm Blue Owl Capital, according to the three outlets. Oracle is not trying to exit its role as the site's main tenant. Instead, the clause would let the company delay payments if the facility fails to come online by its 2028 target.
What Oracle and Blue Owl are saying
“Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule. We are fully committed to New Mexico and confident in our path forward,” Oracle said in a statement to CNBC. Blue Owl Capital said “this notice does not change the financial commitments to this multi-year project.”
Project Jupiter is designed to handle about 2.45 gigawatts of computing capacity, according to TechCrunch and SiliconANGLE. The site is meant to run on gas-powered fuel cells from Bloom Energy, whose shares also fell around 3% on Thursday, CNBC reported. Bloom Energy said on X that it remains “committed” to the contract and its “planned timeline.”
A string of energy delays
An Energy Transfer pipeline meant to supply gas to the campus has been pushed back nearly six months, to February 1, 2027, after regulators repeatedly denied the necessary permits, TechCrunch and SiliconANGLE reported. A separate air-quality permit for the fuel-cell system is still pending, with New Mexico's environment department facing a November 23 deadline to decide.
Project Jupiter is one of the flagship sites of Stargate, the AI infrastructure initiative Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank announced alongside President Donald Trump. The campus has drawn opposition from residents and environmental groups and has become a political flashpoint ahead of the midterm elections, all three outlets reported. Oracle has responded with a public outreach campaign in the state aimed at winning over critics, according to Bloomberg, cited by TechCrunch and SiliconANGLE.
Why investors are watching
SiliconANGLE, citing Barron's, reported that KeyBanc analyst Jackson Ader said the notice raises concerns that Oracle may have to wait longer to recognize billions of dollars in its revenue backlog. “Oracle is in the most tenuous of cash positions of all the major hyperscalers,” Ader said. “These types of issues might spread, but Oracle feels it more acutely than its larger, more cash-rich peers.”
CNBC reported that Oracle co-CEO Clay Magouyrk told analysts on the company's September 10 earnings call that Project Jupiter would not affect its fiscal 2027 revenue or earnings guidance. CNBC also cited the Financial Times on concerns over Oracle's $18 billion in debt tied to the data center, which is already trading at stressed levels. SiliconANGLE reported that Oracle spent $28.5 billion on capital expenditures in its fiscal first quarter, up from $8.5 billion a year earlier, with negative free cash flow of $5 billion in the quarter.
A signal for the rest of the industry
Oracle, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all been spending record sums to build the data centers that AI demand requires, SiliconANGLE noted. The Project Jupiter episode feeds a broader question about when these companies will actually see a return on that spending, and shows that even a project the size of Stargate is not immune to delays caused by energy supply, permitting and local opposition.
For now, none of the parties involved is walking away from the deal. Oracle keeps its role as the campus's anchor tenant, and Blue Owl keeps building. What the force majeure notice buys Oracle is time: room to push back payments without renegotiating the underlying contract, in case the 2028 target slips further because of the pipeline and permitting delays already on record.
