SpaceX Chief Elon Musk Says Anthropic Is ‘Clear AI Leader’ — Vows Not To Sabotage Compute Deal Despite Rivalry

• In a reply on X, Musk pledged never to cut off Anthropic’s access to SpaceX compute resources “in a way that hurt them badly.”
• In May 2026, Anthropic struck a major deal to lease the full capacity of SpaceX’s Colossus 1 facility in Memphis. 
• Earlier this week, SpaceXAI launched Grok 4.5 to rival Anthropic’s recent launches.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Thursday reversed his stance on Claude's parent Anthropic, calling the company “obviously currently the leader in AI” and praising its Mythos/Fable models as unmatched.

“I was clearly wrong about Anthropic,” Musk wrote, reversing his earlier dismissal of the company as a likely failure in the AI sector.

Partnership To Stay Untouched, Says Musk

In a reply on X, he pledged never to cut off Anthropic’s access to SpaceX compute resources “in a way that hurt them badly,” citing his companies’ history of supporting competitors through open patents, Supercharger access, and fair satellite launches.

Musk was responding to speculation that SpaceXAI, SpaceX’s AI segment, could terminate Anthropic’s lease on the Colossus 1 data center. Musk emphasized principled competition over retaliation, even against rivals.

SpaceX-Anthropic Deal

In May 2026, Anthropic struck a major deal to lease the full capacity of SpaceX’s Colossus 1 facility in Memphis — over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and 300+ MW of power. Under the deal, Anthropic will pay approximately $1.25 billion monthly through May 2029, valuing the deal potential at over $40 billion, with either party able to exit on 90 days’ notice. The arrangement supports inference for Claude models and includes discussions on future orbital data centers.

Anthropic’s June launch of Claude Fable 5 and restricted Mythos 5 set new benchmarks in coding and agentic tasks. SpaceXAI countered on July 8 with Grok 4.5, a model positioned as faster and far cheaper.

Elon Musk had previously slammed Anthropic on several occasions, most sharply in February after the company raised $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation. He accused its Claude models of being “misanthropic and evil,” claiming they were biased against “Whites & Asians, especially Chinese, heterosexuals and men,” and repeatedly mocked the company’s name by predicting it was “doomed” to become the most misanthropic AI firm.

With SpaceX now merged with Musk’s AI startup xAI, the two companies are direct rivals. Anthropic is expected to go public later this year. SpaceX debuted on the Nasdaq in June.

How Did Retail Traders React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around SPCX and Anthropic stock stayed within the ‘bearish’ territory at the time of writing.

SPCX has fallen 5% since debuting on the Nasdaq. 

Read More: FATE Stock Jumps 6% As FDA Greenlights Moving Cell Therapy To Clinical Trials

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.