Oracle and OpenAI strike historic $300B cloud deal

Author

Noel Moldvai
September 11, 2025

TL;DR. OpenAI just secured one of the largest cloud contracts in history, committing $300B to Oracle as the AI arms race fuels trillion-dollar ambitions. Meanwhile, SpaceX strikes a $17B deal to buy EchoStar’s spectrum for Starlink’s direct-to-phone service and OpenAI drops a deep dive on why language models still hallucinate.

OpenAI and Oracle sign $300 billion computing deal

Oracle has secured a $300B contract with OpenAI over five years, propelling its market value toward $1T. The deal highlights AI’s voracious need for compute and gives Oracle a larger stake in the cloud wars, competing with AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. CEO Larry Ellison’s net worth also soared by $100 billion, passing Elon Musk as the richest person in the world.

SpaceX strikes $17B deal to buy EchoStar’s spectrum for Starlink’s direct-to-phone service

SpaceX is acquiring $17B worth of wireless spectrum from EchoStar to scale Starlink’s direct-to-cell service. The deal enables laser-connected satellites and massive network capacity increases, helping close mobile coverage gaps globally. It also positions SpaceX to operate independently of mobile carrier partnerships like T-Mobile.

OpenAI’s new research reveals what’s behind AI hallucinations

OpenAI explains that hallucinations arise from training methods that reward guessing over admitting uncertainty. The issue persists even in advanced models like GPT-5, especially under leaderboard pressure. The fix? Rethinking eval metrics to favor honesty and calibration over accurate guesses. The paper calls for systemic changes across the AI evaluation landscape.

High-profile liquidity events in private markets: key lessons

Liquidity events—like IPOs, acquisitions, and secondaries—are critical milestones for private companies and their investors. This blog explains how these events work, explores recent examples from Stripe and SpaceX, and offers practical tips on timing, tax implications, and strategic planning for accredited investors.

Cheerio! Until next week.
-Noel