Musk Says SpaceX's Anthropic Compute Deal 'Works Both Ways'

Elon Musk said SpaceX's compute contract with Anthropic "works both ways" after venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya argued that SpaceX could use a termination clause to charge the AI lab much more, Teslarati reported.

"It works both ways, of course. If compute becomes plentiful and cheap, SpaceX revenue will drop. No crying in the casino for either party," Musk wrote on X on Sunday evening, replying to a clip of Palihapitiya's comments shared by AI commentator Rohan Paul.

On the All-In podcast released Sunday, Palihapitiya said either side can walk away from the agreement on 90 days' notice. If data-center supply tightens, he argued, SpaceX could exercise that option and bring the contract back at two to three times the current price, and Anthropic would have little choice but to accept. He called it "the kingmaking move," Teslarati said, citing BigGo Finance. That is Palihapitiya's interpretation, not a statement from SpaceX or Anthropic, and Musk's reply was a public pushback, not a confirmation that SpaceX plans to reopen the contract.

What the filings already said

The 90-day exit term is not new. Teslarati noted that SpaceX disclosed in its IPO filings in May that Anthropic would pay $1.25 billion a month for dedicated capacity at its Colossus clusters through May 2029, nearly $45 billion in total, with both companies able to terminate on 90 days' notice. Later SpaceX compute deals with Google and Reflection AI carry similar exit terms, the report said.

Palihapitiya's thesis, as Teslarati summarized it, rests on incoming Democratic governors pulling tax incentives for data centers and slowing new construction. In Texas, Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned on a moratorium on new data-center approvals, and Deutsche Bank analysts warned last week that SpaceX's Texas compute capacity could face delays. Teslarati tied that political backdrop to the earlier decline in SpaceX and Tesla shares after the midterm results. A slowdown, in that telling, would favor companies that already have capacity.

The other side of the clause

Musk's point was that the same exit door opens both ways. If compute gets cheaper and more plentiful, SpaceX's revenue under the contract could fall, and Anthropic, which has also signed large compute agreements with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, would have leverage to renegotiate or leave. Musk has called Anthropic "obviously currently the leader in AI," and Teslarati said it remains one of SpaceX's largest compute customers.

Teslarati also recapped comments Musk made at the Baron Investment Conference on Friday, including that SpaceX was "getting 50 billion a year for 35 billion dollar investments," that it can bring a data center online in eight or nine months versus two and a half years for competitors, and that it is tracking toward an annualized revenue rate above $100 billion in December, with a "best guess" of $500 billion by December 2027. Those are Musk's figures, not independently audited results in the Teslarati report. SpaceX shares rose more than 2 percent in overnight trading late Sunday after closing Friday at $134.27, according to Stocktwits as cited by Teslarati.