Force Majeur?

Oracle has issued a force majeur warning to the companies building and funding the a data center in them for New Mexico.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, "force majeur," is a concept in contract law that serves as a kind of, "Get out of jail free," card.

Typically, things like wars, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and strikes might trigger a force majeur.

It appears that Oracle believes that potential delays in grid connections qualify.  

That has to be the lamest reason for an attempt to invoke this provision that have ever heard of.

Oracle set out last year to lease a massive AI data-center campus being built in New Mexico’s Doña Ana County, part of a blitz of deals to create computing power for OpenAI.

The company made aggressive financial commitments for the facility in contracts that allow it little wiggle room. Now, “Project Jupiter” is mired in challenges over power supply and permitting and is fast becoming a prime example of the risks in the tech giant’s sprawling and expensive artificial-intelligence gambit.

………

Earlier this week, Oracle delivered a force majeure notice to Stack Infrastructure—the site’s developer, which is owned by investment firm Blue Owl Capital funds—that it would push back the date at which it will pay full rent. The lease gives Oracle the right to do that for up to three years. Project Jupiter’s first phase was originally expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2028.

Oracle said that force majeure notices are commonplace in projects like the one in New Mexico and don’t necessarily mean there is a delay or change in expectations.

“Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule,” a spokesman said in an email. “We are fully committed to New Mexico and confident in our path forward.

Yeah sure.  Confident.

More like trying to dump these contracts because interest rates on the financing have jumped.