Project Jupiter’s troubles are no longer confined to permitting fights and political battles in New Mexico. They are now showing up on Wall Street.
Oracle shares have continued sliding after the technology giant invoked a force majeure provision tied to Project Jupiter, the enormous artificial intelligence data-center complex under construction in Santa Teresa, raising new questions about delays, financing risk, and whether one of the country’s biggest AI infrastructure bets can meet its ambitious timetable.
Oracle closed Monday at $132.60, down 3.28% for the day, marking its fourth consecutive trading-day decline. The stock closed at $144.56 immediately before news of the force majeure became public, meaning shares have fallen roughly 8.3% since then. Oracle is now trading nearly 59% below its 52-week high.
Project Jupiter is not necessarily responsible for every dollar of that decline. Monday was broadly negative for stocks as rising oil prices and Treasury yields weighed on markets. But the Wall Street Journal specifically cited continuing concerns surrounding Oracle’s enormous, debt-financed New Mexico data-center project while reporting the company’s 3.3% Monday drop.
The market reaction began almost immediately after the Project Jupiter news broke Thursday.
Oracle shares dropped 3.5% on Sept. 24, the day reports emerged that the company had issued a force majeure notice to Blue Owl Capital, whose STACK Infrastructure subsidiary is developing the project. Bloom Energy, which is expected to provide fuel cells for the massive facility, also fell that day.
What does ‘force majeure’ mean for Jupiter?
A force majeure provision is designed to protect parties to a contract when circumstances outside their control interfere with their ability to perform their obligations.
Reuters reported that Oracle issued the notice because of potential delays securing the enormous amount of power Project Jupiter requires. Oracle is not attempting to cancel its lease. Instead, the notice could protect it from having to begin making higher payments if the facility fails to become operational on schedule in 2028.
Oracle has insisted the move should not be interpreted as confirmation that Jupiter will be delayed.
“Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule,” Oracle said, adding that it remains “fully committed to New Mexico and confident in our path forward.”
STACK similarly said the notice does not change the parties’ financial commitments to the multiyear development.
Yet simply invoking the contractual protection appears to have been enough to make some investors uneasy.
Simply Wall St noted Monday that Project Jupiter is an important physical component of Oracle’s plan to transform its enormous AI contract backlog into actual cloud revenue. A delay does not destroy Oracle’s AI strategy, the analysis noted, but it potentially interferes with the company’s ability to bring computing capacity online when customers need it.
Wall Street already worried about Jupiter’s debt
The force majeure disclosure comes at a sensitive time.
Roughly $18 billion in loans tied to Project Jupiter have recently been quoted at only 89 to 91 cents on the dollar, according to reporting based on Financial Times and Reuters information — signaling that investors are demanding a discount to take on that debt. Pasted text
Those concerns are colliding with Oracle’s already aggressive AI spending.
Oracle had roughly $129.5 billion in debt, according to Reuters reporting cited in the supplied financial analysis, while the company posted negative free cash flow of $5.4 billion in its latest quarter despite beating Wall Street’s expectations. Pasted text
The company spent approximately $28.5 billion on capital expenditures in just the first quarter of fiscal 2027 as it rushed to build the infrastructure necessary to accommodate surging AI demand. Pasted text
That makes execution especially important. Investors may tolerate enormous upfront spending if Oracle can rapidly bring facilities online, fill them with customers, and turn contracted AI demand into revenue. Delays make that equation more complicated.
The other side: Oracle’s AI business is booming
The picture is far from entirely bleak.
Oracle reported more than $30 billion in new AI cloud contracts during its latest quarter, sending its total remaining performance obligations — essentially contracted future business — to a staggering $664 billion. Cloud infrastructure revenue surged 121% year-over-year to $7.4 billion. Pasted text
That enormous backlog is one reason some analysts continue to see significant long-term value in Oracle despite its battered share price.
But Project Jupiter illustrates the risk buried underneath the AI boom: Oracle can sign hundreds of billions of dollars worth of contracts, but it still needs enormous data centers, power plants, pipelines, GPUs, financing, and regulatory approvals before all that promised computing capacity can generate revenue.
A New Mexico permitting fight becomes a Wall Street problem
Jupiter’s power system has faced repeated complications.
The sprawling campus is expected to require roughly 2.45 gigawatts of electricity, much of it supplied by Bloom Energy fuel cells fueled with natural gas. A pipeline needed to deliver that gas has faced permitting delays, while a separate air-quality permit for the fuel-cell operation remains part of the regulatory process.
Those New Mexico disputes are now being watched by investors far beyond the state.
Reuters reported that the Jupiter situation is rippling through the broader AI infrastructure financing market, where investors are increasingly scrutinizing whether enormous, highly leveraged data-center developments can be completed quickly enough to justify their costs. Oracle and Blue Owl shares both dropped following disclosure of the force majeure.
For months, Project Jupiter’s controversies centered largely on water, electricity, permitting, government incentives, and opposition from nearby residents.
Now there is another constituency watching closely: Oracle shareholders and bondholders.
And judging by the stock and debt markets since the force majeure became public, Wall Street is paying attention.