Related Digital is finalizing approximately $16 billion in financing for an Oracle data center campus in Saline Township, Michigan, Bloomberg reported on April 1, with roughly $2 billion in equity from Blackstone Inc. and approximately $14 billion in debt led by Bank of America Corp. According to the report, the debt component is now expected to involve a bond issuance rather than the originally planned construction loan, with closing expected as soon as April.
If completed as described, the deal would extend an already unprecedented pattern of Oracle-linked data center financing to approximately $72 billion across four U.S. sites. Of that total, $56 billion has been confirmed for facilities in Texas, Wisconsin, and New Mexico — including a $38 billion package described at the time as the largest AI infrastructure financing to date. Bloomberg's reported $16 billion for Michigan has not been independently confirmed. Months of complex negotiation following Blue Owl Capital's exit from the project in December 2025 preceded the reported agreement.
Oracle is not the direct borrower on these project-level deals — long-term lease commitments, rather than corporate debt, anchor the financing. But the company has disclosed $248 billion in additional uncommenced lease obligations substantially all related to data centers, spanning 15 to 19 year terms and not yet reflected on its balance sheet.
Announced in October 2025 by OpenAI, Oracle, and Related Digital, the campus will power applications for OpenAI as part of the Stargate initiative — the joint venture planning $500 billion in AI infrastructure over four years. Related Digital, a data center platform launched by Related Companies in March 2025 with a $45 billion pipeline, is the developer.
## Blue Owl's Exit and the Financing Reset
Blue Owl Capital's withdrawal in December 2025 forced a structural reset of the Michigan project's financing. According to the Financial Times, Blue Owl declined to fund the project, citing unfavorable debt terms and concerns about construction delays and Oracle's rising debt. On December 17, 2025, the day the report surfaced, Oracle stock fell $10.19 per share — approximately 5.4% — to $178.46.
Oracle and Related Digital disputed characterizations that financing was in limbo. Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert stated that Related Digital "selected the best equity partner from a competitive group of options, which in this instance was not Blue Owl." Natalie Ravitz, a Related Digital spokesperson, said the project was moving forward with construction expected in the first quarter of 2026.
Bond market data reflected the stress. Oracle's 4.125% bonds maturing in 2045 had declined to 71.6 cents on the dollar around the time of Blue Owl's exit in December 2025, yielding 6.8%, according to BondbloX — a level more typical of non-investment-grade debt for an issuer carrying Oracle's credit rating.
By late January 2026, Bloomberg reported that Blackstone was weighing an expanded role — potentially providing debt in addition to equity — while Bank of America led a push to raise $14 billion in debt. BondbloX had independently reported both BofA's debt lead and Blackstone's equity involvement in December 2025. Blackstone has declined to comment through multiple reporting cycles, and its specific motivations for stepping in where Blue Owl withdrew are not publicly stated.
## What Michigan Is Getting
Plans call for more than 1 gigawatt of capacity on a site south of Ann Arbor, with three 550,000-square-foot single-story buildings using a closed-loop, non-evaporative cooling system. On December 18, 2025 — one day after the Blue Owl exit report — Michigan's Public Service Commission approved DTE Energy contracts for 1,383 megawatts of contracted demand, an increase representing approximately 25% of DTE's existing electric load, according to Bridge Michigan's reporting on the proceedings.
Green Chile Ventures LLC, identified as an Oracle subsidiary in MPSC filings and press reporting, is the customer entity on the DTE contracts. Under a contract running through February 2045 with a minimum 19-year term, Oracle expects the facility to open by December 2026 and reach maximum capacity of 1.4 gigawatts by December 2027.
MPSC approval came with significant conditions. DTE must absorb unrecoverable costs if the project fails to reach full capacity. Other DTE customers receive emergency load-shedding priority before the data center. Green Chile Ventures is required to fund 1,383 megawatts of battery energy storage over 15 years. Chair Dan Scripps stated at the hearing: "I would put the contracts that are in front of us today on par or better with any that have been approved in the country."
DTE concluded the arrangement would generate $300 million in annual savings for ratepayers by having Green Chile Ventures finance battery storage and grid connection infrastructure. Local economic benefits include 2,500 construction jobs, 450 permanent positions, $8 million annually to schools, and $1.6 million in annual tax revenue to Saline Township. Pre-construction work began at the site in January 2026.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel criticized the MPSC approval process as secretive, noting that 39 MPSC staff signed nondisclosure agreements to access unredacted contracts. A state legislative bill seeks to ban elected officials from signing NDAs related to data center construction.
## Oracle's Expanding Debt Footprint
Project-level financing linked to Oracle data centers has grown rapidly. Banks assembled $38 billion in debt for facilities in Texas and Wisconsin — $23.25 billion for Texas and $14.75 billion for Wisconsin — led by JPMorgan Chase and Mitsubishi UFJ, with four-year maturity and pricing approximately 2.5 percentage points above benchmark, according to Sherwood News. Vantage Data Centers is the developer for those sites. Separately, approximately 20 banks provided roughly $18 billion for a New Mexico facility, with Sumitomo Mitsui, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, and Mitsubishi UFJ as administrative agents under similar pricing and maturity terms.
Beyond these project-level packages, Oracle disclosed substantial uncommenced lease commitments. In its December 10, 2025 earnings announcement, the company reported $248 billion in additional lease commitments "substantially all related to data centers and cloud capacity arrangements," expected to commence between the third quarter of fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2028, spanning 15 to 19 year terms. None are yet reflected on Oracle's balance sheet.
At the corporate level, Oracle announced in early 2026 a separate $45 billion to $50 billion financing plan for calendar year 2026: a one-time senior unsecured bond issuance led by Goldman Sachs, an at-the-market equity program authorized up to $20 billion led by Citigroup, and mandatory convertible preferred securities. Oracle stated the purpose as building Oracle Cloud Infrastructure capacity for contracted customers including AMD, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, TikTok, and xAI.
Oracle's net debt reached approximately $105 billion by November 2025, up from roughly $78 billion, according to the Construction Owners Association of America, citing financial disclosures at the time. Morgan Stanley projected the company's debt could reach $290 billion by 2028 — a third-party analyst estimate, not an Oracle-confirmed figure.
## A Securities Fraud Class Action Linked to This Project
A securities fraud class action, Barrows v. Oracle Corporation (Case No. 1:26-cv-00127-JLH), was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware covering the class period from June 12 to December 16, 2025. Filed by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, the complaint alleges Oracle misled investors about the extent to which AI capital expenditures would generate near-term revenue growth and concealed risks to the company's debt position, credit rating, and cash flow.
Blue Owl's exit from the Michigan project was the triggering event for the end of the class period — the December 17 stock decline that followed the report is central to the complaint's theory of harm, tying this specific deal directly to the litigation.
An April 6, 2026 lead plaintiff deadline falls days after the reported Michigan financing closing. Securities fraud class actions are a common response to significant stock declines, and a filed complaint does not establish that any claims have merit. No public response from Oracle to the lawsuit was identified.
## Inside the Stargate Pipeline
Michigan is one component of a broader buildout. Announced on January 21, 2025, the Stargate Project is a joint venture of OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX planning $500 billion in AI infrastructure investment over four years, with an initial $100 billion commitment. SoftBank holds financial responsibility; OpenAI holds operational responsibility.
Within that framework, Oracle and OpenAI entered a specific agreement to deliver 4.5 gigawatts of additional Stargate data center capacity across sites in Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin. Related Digital handles development in Michigan; Vantage Data Centers is the developer for Texas and Wisconsin, indicating Oracle works with multiple partners across the initiative.
Launched in March 2025 as a vertically integrated platform, Related Digital combines Related Companies' real estate development experience with clean energy capabilities through energyRe. At inception, the platform had a $45 billion near-term pipeline and plans to raise up to $8 billion in capital, with Morgan Stanley advising.
## What Remains Unresolved
Several questions remain open as the Michigan financing reportedly nears completion.
Reported cost or financing figures for the project vary markedly: $7 billion in MPSC filings, $10 billion in reporting around Blue Owl's financing discussions, and $16 billion in Bloomberg's April 1 report. Different scopes or definitions — construction cost versus total financing including equity and reserves — may account for the gap, as may genuine cost escalation. No source reconciles the figures.
Specific terms of the reported $14 billion bond issuance — coupon rate, maturity, credit rating, and whether it qualifies as investment-grade or high-yield — are not yet known. Those details, when they emerge, will indicate how capital markets are pricing the risk of lending against Oracle's lease creditworthiness at this scale, particularly given that Oracle's existing long-dated bonds were trading at yields more consistent with non-investment-grade debt in December 2025.
Construction progress beyond pre-construction work that began in January 2026 has not been confirmed publicly. Under the DTE contract, the facility must open by December 2026 and reach full 1.4-gigawatt capacity by December 2027 — an aggressive timeline for a project whose financing is only now reportedly closing. Only an initial 332 megawatts of the required 1,383 megawatts of battery storage had been approved in the commission's December 2025 proceedings, leaving questions about whether the full power ramp can proceed on schedule.
Related Digital is finalizing approximately $16 billion in financing for an Oracle data center campus in Michigan, Bloomberg reported, a deal that would bring Oracle-linked data center financing across four U.S. sites to roughly $72 billion.
- Blackstone Inc. is providing roughly $2 billion in equity, with Bank of America leading approximately $14 billion in debt now expected as a bond issuance rather than the originally planned construction loan, closing expected as soon as April.
- Of that $72 billion total, $56 billion has been confirmed for facilities in Texas, Wisconsin, and New Mexico; the reported $16 billion for Michigan has not been independently verified.
- Blue Owl Capital's withdrawal in December 2025, citing unfavorable debt terms and concerns about Oracle's rising debt, forced months of renegotiation and triggered a roughly 5.4% drop in Oracle's stock.
- Oracle is not the direct borrower — long-term lease commitments anchor the project-level financing — but the company has disclosed $248 billion in additional uncommenced lease obligations related to data centers, not yet on its balance sheet.
- Terms of the reported bond issuance, including coupon rate, maturity, and credit rating, are not yet known — a material gap given that Oracle's existing long-dated bonds were trading at yields more typical of non-investment-grade debt in December 2025.
