The Bloom Energy backlog gap is the number that matters most right now: the company markets a $20 billion backlog, but its audited remaining performance obligations (RPO) come in at $492.6 million — roughly a 40x difference. Short seller Hunterbrook Media used that gap, along with claims about a Chinese-linked scandium supply chain and heavy related-party revenue, to argue that Bloom’s growth is either physically impossible to sustain or partly circular financing with its own affiliate. Bloom Energy called the report “false and misleading,” but its rebuttal didn’t include specific numbers to counter the backlog gap or the related-party revenue share.
What Bloom Energy actually sells: solid oxide fuel cells for the AI power crunch
Bloom Energy makes solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), which convert natural gas or hydrogen directly into electricity through an electrochemical reaction rather than combustion. That’s why they lose less energy than a gas turbine — on pure hydrogen they hit roughly 60% electrical efficiency, and up to 90% combined efficiency when the waste heat is also captured. But the technology itself isn’t really why the stock took off this year.
Grid interconnection queues — the waiting line to physically connect a new power source to the U.S. grid — now stretch 7 to 10 years in major markets. A data center operator can’t just build near unlimited power the moment it wants to; it may wait years for a grid connection slot. Gas turbine plants take 3 to 5 years to permit and build. Bloom’s fuel cells, by contrast, are pre-manufactured modules that can be installed and generating power in 90 days to 12 months. That speed gap, more than the underlying chemistry, is why Oracle and other hyperscalers turned to Bloom.
The 2026 numbers are real: 165% revenue growth and a swing to profitability
Second-quarter 2026 revenue came in at $1.065 billion, up 165.5% year over year. Product revenue alone was $935.4 million, up 215.4%. GAAP gross margin hit 33.4%, up 668 basis points from a year earlier, and GAAP operating income flipped to a $182.2 million profit from a $3.5 million loss in the same quarter last year. Net income was $196.3 million, with diluted EPS of $0.62.
First-quarter revenue was also up sharply, at $751.1 million, a 130.4% year-over-year gain — so the second quarter wasn’t a one-off spike. Management raised full-year 2026 guidance to $3.9–$4.2 billion in revenue (about 100% growth at the midpoint) and $800–$900 million in non-GAAP operating income. Cash climbed to $2.67 billion by the end of the second quarter, up from $2.45 billion at year-end 2025, and operating cash flow turned positive at $226.4 million. By the numbers, this is a company crossing the inflection point from chronic loss-maker to profitable growth story.
The Oracle deal and the Brookfield financing are two different things
In April 2026, Oracle agreed to buy up to 2.8 gigawatts of fuel-cell power from Bloom Energy, with 1.2 gigawatts already under firm contract — a meaningful commitment, given that one gigawatt roughly covers the electricity use of 750,000 U.S. households. That power is slated for Oracle’s U.S. data center projects in 2026 and 2027.
Around the same time, a separate number grabbed headlines: a $25 billion financing framework with asset manager Brookfield. The partnership started at $5 billion in October 2025 and was expanded fivefold to $25 billion in late June 2026.
That $25 billion isn’t money flowing to Bloom Energy. It’s a ceiling on how much Brookfield has committed to lending to Bloom’s customers — mostly data center operators — so they can afford the upfront cost of fuel-cell installations. Since fuel cells are capital-intensive, a financing partner like Brookfield fronts the money and recoups it over time, a structure that’s common in solar and wind project finance too.
The catch is that nobody yet knows how quickly or how completely this financing framework converts into actual revenue for Bloom. And Brookfield isn’t a neutral lender here — it’s also an equity holder in Bloom Energy’s own joint ventures.
What the short seller flagged: the Bloom Energy backlog, scandium, and related-party revenue
In July 2026, research firm Hunterbrook published a critical report on Bloom Energy built around three core claims.
First is the Bloom Energy backlog discrepancy itself: a marketed $20 billion backlog versus $492.6 million in audited remaining performance obligations, a roughly 40x gap. Hunterbrook contrasts this with peers like GE Vernova, where the same ratio runs under 2x, and attributes the difference to Bloom including items in its marketed backlog — anticipated tax credits, annually renewable service contracts — that competitors typically exclude.
Second, and arguably connected to the Bloom Energy backlog question, is related-party revenue concentration. Hunterbrook claims that 44% of Bloom’s 2025 revenue ($892 million of $2.02 billion) came from related parties — largely Brookfield joint ventures in which Bloom itself holds a stake — and that the share spiked to 74% in the fourth quarter of 2025 alone. Bloom’s own disclosures acknowledge that a customer “may be a project-finance affiliate rather than the ultimate end user.”
Third is the scandium supply chain. Bloom’s fuel cells rely on a ceramic electrolyte built around scandium oxide, and Hunterbrook’s investigation — citing trade data and Chinese corporate filings — alleges Bloom sources this material from China through four indirect routes. By Hunterbrook’s math, hitting a 5-gigawatt production target would require roughly 220 tons of scandium oxide annually, against a projected global supply of only 240 tons by 2030, implying a structural shortage.
Bloom’s rebuttal — and what it left unanswered
Bloom Energy’s SEC filing called the accounting claims “false and misleading” and pointed investors to its audited financial statements. On scandium, it said it holds “sufficient supply… to meet our current fuel cell demand and backlog” and does not depend on China now or for future scaling. On capacity, it said it has “clear visibility into our supply chain to support production of 25GW of fuel cells per year.”
What the rebuttal didn’t include is any specific figure disputing the Bloom Energy backlog-versus-RPO gap or the related-party revenue percentage. A general reaffirmation is not the same thing as a numbers-based rebuttal. The stock rose 6% after the response, but that looks more like relief following a strong quarter than the market actually verifying the specific claims.
What the current price is asking for
As of the September 15, 2026 close, Bloom Energy traded at $262.25, a market cap of $77.24 billion. Against trailing twelve-month revenue of $3.11 billion, that’s a price-to-sales ratio of 24.9x — or about 19x using the midpoint of 2026 revenue guidance ($4.05 billion). The trailing P/E of 295.6x looks extreme, but that mostly reflects how recently the company flipped from losses to profit; prior quarters still weigh down the trailing earnings base.
Using the midpoint of 2026 non-GAAP EPS guidance ($2.70), the forward P/E works out to roughly 97x; using next-twelve-month analyst consensus estimates, it’s closer to 74x. The gap between those two numbers exists because consensus estimates already bake in some 2027 earnings growth — not because either calculation is wrong.
However you calculate it, this valuation isn’t justified by modest growth. It requires continued triple-digit-to-high-double-digit revenue growth, a declining reliance on related-party revenue, and firm contracts (RPO) catching up to the marketed backlog. If the next earnings report instead shows the related-party share or the Bloom Energy backlog gap widening, Hunterbrook’s core argument — that recent growth partly reflects a circular arrangement with Brookfield — gains more weight.
The next checkpoint is concrete: watch whether Bloom Energy’s third-quarter 2026 results narrow the Bloom Energy backlog-to-RPO gap and disclose more detail on related-party revenue, and whether new, non-affiliated customers show up in contracts beyond Oracle. If those two things don’t improve while the stock keeps climbing, the gap between valuation and backlog quality could widen further. The underlying numbers are available directly at Bloom Energy’s official investor relations page (investor.bloomenergy.com).