Yet after Oracle shares started getting federally a** pounded today following reports that the company had issued a force majeure notice connected to its enormous Project Jupiter AI data center in New Mexico, the afternoon quickly turned into one of my favorite Wall Street traditions: corporations explaining why the alarming sounding thing everybody just read and understands crystal clearly is actually completely normal, totally misunderstood by everyone and nobody should worry about anything.

For those unfamiliar, force majeure is a contractual provision generally invoked when extraordinary circumstances outside a party's control interfere with, or threaten to interfere with, its ability to perform under a contract. Oracle reportedly issued the notice to a unit of Blue Owl Capital developing Project Jupiter, citing potential delays in securing power and protecting Oracle financially if the facility doesn't come online as scheduled.

Project Jupiter is a massive New Mexico AI campus tied to the Stargate buildout and Oracle's relationship with OpenAI, requiring roughly 2.4 gigawatts of power and relying heavily on Bloom Energy fuel cells. The problem is that a natural gas pipeline needed to supply the site has reportedly been pushed back roughly six months following permitting problems, while a separate air quality permit for the fuel cell system remains pending. So when news of the force majeure notice hit, Oracle shares sold off sharply and Bloom Energy got dragged down with them.

Then came the idiotic damage control.

Oracle said on X that the project "remains on our planned schedule" and that force majeure notices are "commonplace in developments of this scale" and are often used simply to preserve contractual rights, adding that the notice does not itself establish a project delay or change delivery expectations.

Technically, that's true. But companies also don't issue force majeure notices because everything is going f**king fantastic.

The entire purpose is to protect yourself because some circumstance has arisen, or may arise, that creates enough risk around contractual performance to make protecting yourself necessary.

Bloom Energy then joined the reassurance tour, saying that after speaking with Oracle, it had been assured Oracle "remains committed to Project Jupiter and its contract with Bloom to deliver 2.4 GW of fuel cell capacity" and that Bloom remains excited to execute on Oracle's planned timeline.

Nothing says confidence like rushing to phone your customer during a stock selloff and then immediately telling X that you just called your customer during a stock selloff. Last time someone did this it was Steve Mnuchin "calling the banks" when the market served investors up a royale fu*k deluxe with cheese back in December 2018.