> But there is not back and forth buying of the same item, or of rubber/balloons. All the deals seem legit.

Some, certainly, but the vendor-financing deals certainly look circular to the casual observer. Microsoft invests $X into OpenAI for a 51% (or whatever) stake, and that investment then goes straight back to Microsoft to pay for compute credits.

Or Nvidia invests[1] $100m into OpenAI, which OpenAI then turns around and pays back to Nvidia for compute.

The majority of the deals making the news are structured like this; maybe technically those aren't actual ducks[2], but they sure look, walk and talk like ducks.

Similarly structured deals are with Oracle. And Coreweave. And everyone.

It may not be a "circular" deal, but what do you expect people to call it when a company makes a deal to receive cash (not credit, but actual cash) from a vendor, and spends that cash with that vendor?

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[1] I use this word loosely here - the investment is a commitment of 10x $10m tranches.

[2] I.e. circular deals.