Waymo takes on debt for the first time: $5 billion loan to expand its robotaxi service
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
Driverless taxis are being financed like a mature business with debt rather than as an experiment, so scale is growing faster than before.
According to Waymo, this is its first debt financing: a $5 billion term loan closed on October 8, arranged by PIMCO, Blackstone and Sixth Street, with Goldman Sachs as the sole lead bookrunner. The money will go toward expanding the driverless ride-hailing service in the US and abroad; it complements a $16 billion equity round in February 2026. The company says that last month it launched service in its fifteenth US city.
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