Opinions vary. The facts don’t.
Earlier this month, xAI snagged a massive compute deal with Anthropic. Billions per month for exclusive rights to the Colossus cluster. A coup, really. xAI got revenue they needed. Anthropic caught up in the hardware race. Everyone cheered.
This morning, Elon Musk got quiet on the duration.
He told X that SpaceX hadn’t committed to long-term leasing. Said it was just 180 days. With 90 days notice for cancellation. Short-term was his ask. He claims he won’t leave them hanging, but if compute gets tight? He wants it back.
“This is a 180-day lease with 90-day notice mutual cancellation thereafter.”
That directly contradicts the paperwork.
The SpaceX S-1 filing says something else entirely. Look at page F-62. It says Anthropic agreed to pay a monthly fee through May 2029. That is not 180 days. That is a three-year contract. The same language shows up on pages F-96, 13, and 146. “$1.25 billion per month” it says. Repeated. Again and again.
Did someone typo three-year terms into multiple pages of a financial filing?
Probably not.
So why the gap between the post and the prospectus? Maybe Musk argues that “paying for service” isn’t the same as “leasing.” That’s semantics. A lease implies provision. A one-way lock-in doesn’t make sense if either side can quit on three months’ notice. Why structure it as three years if you plan to bail in six?
xAI hasn’t commented.
Neither has Anthropic.
Should you trust a public figure who redefines contractual obligations to fit the current market sentiment? Maybe. But during a quiet period, while marketing security, clarity is key. False statements aren’t ideal. Bad karma is the mild penalty here. The SEC might not act. Musk likely wouldn’t care if they did.
But the discrepancy sits there. Open for interpretation.
