Oracle’s force majeure notice shifts 2028 Project Jupiter delay risk

Oracle has invoked a force majeure provision for Project Jupiter, the New Mexico data-center campus it is set to occupy. It seeks protection from additional costs if the project fails to open in 2028 as planned.

The notice went to the project developer, a unit of Blue Owl Capital. Oracle is not trying to abandon its role as the site’s principal tenant. The notice would defer payments if the campus is derailed and misses its planned opening date. Oracle is preserving a contractual remedy for a delayed project while maintaining that its multiyear commitment still stands.

Oracle said Project Jupiter remains on schedule, that it is fully committed to New Mexico, and that it is confident in its path forward. Blue Owl said the notice does not alter the financial commitments for the multiyear project.

The project has faced regulatory setbacks, environmental concerns, and local opposition to new data centers. Project Jupiter is also part of the Stargate AI-infrastructure buildout associated with President Donald Trump.

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A notice built around a missed 2028 opening

Oracle could postpone payments if Project Jupiter is delayed and does not come online in 2028. Neither Oracle nor Blue Owl disclosed the notice’s full terms, the payments potentially subject to deferral, or the events that would qualify as force majeure.

The reporting does not establish whether the provision is tied to construction delays, permitting problems, utility interconnection, environmental litigation, or another defined event. It also does not say whether Blue Owl can recover delayed payments later, whether construction continues uninterrupted, or whether any other tenant or contractor is affected.

Bloomberg characterized the action as an effort to avoid expenses if the campus is derailed, rather than an effort to walk away from the site. Blue Owl says its financial commitments remain unchanged, while Oracle seeks flexibility over when certain payments would be due.

Magouyrk said the project would not affect the company’s fiscal 2027 revenue or earnings outlook. That guidance does not answer which party absorbs the costs if the 2028 delivery target slips.

The debt and delivery problem

Project Jupiter has been tied to $18 billion in debt, which reporting says is already trading at stressed levels. The supplied reporting does not identify the exact debt instruments, their holders, their maturity dates, or their contractual relationship to the force majeure notice. Stressed debt and a request to delay payments put schedule risk beyond construction management.

For Oracle, a delayed opening would postpone access to capacity expected from the New Mexico campus while potentially adding costs. For the Blue Owl development unit, payment timing matters even if Oracle remains committed to the project. A developer can retain a tenant’s long-term commitment yet face a near-term financing problem when construction, power, and debt-service obligations continue ahead of a tenant’s deferred payments.

Oracle says the campus remains on schedule and it remains committed. Blue Owl says the financial commitments remain unchanged. Neither statement says that all payment dates are unchanged. The notice reported on September 24 creates an exception if the planned delivery condition is not met.

There is a discrepancy in the supplied market reporting. CNBC’s headline said Oracle shares sank 7%, while the article text said the shares fell 5% on September 24. The reporting supplied here does not provide a closing price or clarify whether the two figures refer to different points during trading, so the size of the decline cannot be reconciled from the available material.

Project Jupiter in the data-center buildout

The New Mexico dispute comes as the AI buildout is constrained by physical infrastructure as well as server procurement. In our August 4 coverage of integrated power campuses, we documented how gigawatt-scale power, liquid cooling, microgrids, and permitting are being treated as one project plan. Project Jupiter shows the financial consequence of that dependency: a tenant can have capacity plans and funding commitments yet remain exposed if the facility, its approvals, or its supporting infrastructure misses a delivery date.

The same pressure is visible across the U.S. market. We reported on August 5 that Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Oracle together had committed nearly $1.09 trillion to future data-center leases, with Oracle accounting for $260 billion. That figure covers a wider portfolio than Project Jupiter, but it puts Oracle’s effort to protect itself from one delayed campus in context. At this scale, lease and capacity commitments depend on projects clearing local opposition, regulatory review, power planning, cooling requirements, and financing at the same time.

New Mexico’s local and environmental concerns are part of the commercial issue. The project has faced opposition ahead of the midterm elections and scrutiny from environmental groups. The supplied reporting does not specify which regulatory decisions remain unresolved or whether any particular challenge has caused a construction delay. The notice shows that Oracle considers a schedule failure plausible enough to address contractually, while asserting that the campus is still on track.

What Oracle and Blue Owl have not disclosed

Neither company has disclosed the duration of any payment pause, the amount covered by the notice, whether Oracle would owe interest or penalties on deferred amounts, or what happens if the facility opens after 2028. There is also no disclosed revised schedule, no detailed explanation of the setbacks, and no independent construction-status assessment in the supplied reporting.

The notice concerns allocating the cost of a delay before it occurs. Blue Owl’s insistence that the project’s financial commitments are unchanged means the dispute is over timing and protection, not the existence of the deal. Timing matters for a debt-backed data-center project. If the 2028 target slips, the force majeure language could determine whether Blue Owl carries more of the interim financial burden or Oracle does.

For now, Oracle’s fiscal 2027 guidance is unchanged, Project Jupiter’s stated opening target is still 2028, and the full force majeure terms remain undisclosed.