Earlier this month, xAI signed a major compute deal with Anthropic, pledging billions of {dollars} a month for unique use of the firm’s Colossus cluster. It was a coup for each corporations, giving xAI some much-needed income and serving to Anthropic catch up in the endless race for compute.
However this morning on X, Elon Musk downplayed precisely how a lot SpaceX had dedicated to the deal.
“SpaceX has not dedicated to leasing Colossus for years, though it’s attainable that could be what occurs,” he stated, replying to a consumer. “This is a 180 day lease with 90 day discover mutual cancellation thereafter. The quick time period was our request, not Anthropic’s. We gained’t depart them hanging and can present an inexpensive off-ramp, but when compute will get tremendous tight I stated we’d want it again sooner or later.”
Musk’s assertion immediately contradicts SpaceX’s recent S-1 filing, which confirms the commonplace 90-day cancellation however presents the deal as a three-year settlement. Web page F-62 of the submitting reads:
On Could 3, 2026, the Firm entered right into a cloud companies settlement with Anthropic PBC, an AI analysis and growth public profit company, with respect to entry to compute capability. Pursuant to this settlement, the buyer has agreed to pay a month-to-month payment via Could 2029, with capability ramping in Could 2026 at a lowered payment. The settlement could also be terminated by both occasion upon 90 days’ discover. The shopper will retain possession and mental property rights in its content material, AI fashions, and associated information.
The important thing level right here is that Anthropic “has agreed to pay a month-to-month payment via Could 2029” — a reasonably simple description of a three-year lease. The identical language is repeated on F-96 and in barely diverse kind (“the buyer has agreed to pay us $1.25 billion per thirty days via Could 2029”) on pages 13 and 146, so it’s not as if there was a typo.
xAI did not reply to a request for clarification.
Possibly we are able to quibble about whether or not Anthropic agreeing to pay for a service means the identical factor as SpaceX agreeing to present that service, however that’s not often what “lease” means. And why have a one-way lock-in if both occasion can terminate the cope with three months’ discover anyway?
I don’t have the deal in entrance of me, so I don’t know what it says — and neither SpaceX nor Anthropic is saying something about the length of the deal of their bulletins. Nonetheless, there needs to be a reasonably simple truth of the matter right here, and it’s not the type of factor you need to make false statements about throughout an organization’s quiet interval.
As all the time, we must always notice that the SEC most likely will not do something — and even when they did, Elon most likely wouldn’t care. However this type of does seem to be a material misrepresentation made while marketing a security, which is dangerous karma at the very least.
Sean O’Kane contributed reporting to this article.
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