tech
May 7, 2026
How Elon grew to love Anthropic
Business imperatives turned Musk's AI rival into a partner.
TL;DR
- SpaceX will provide Anthropic with over 300 megawatts of compute capacity from its Colossus 1 data center, including over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs.
- The deal allows Elon Musk to monetize unused compute capacity from his AI lab, xAI, before the anticipated SpaceX IPO.
- This partnership is seen as a strategic move against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a rival to both Musk and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
- Anthropic has experienced rapid revenue and usage growth, leading to compute limitations and customer frustration.
- The agreement also includes Anthropic's interest in partnering to develop orbital AI compute capacity.
- The deal provides financial benefits for SpaceX, turning an idle asset into revenue and avoiding a potential write-down before going public.