Musk Says He Will Not Cut Off Anthropic Despite Hosting Its Models

Elon Musk has promised he will not shut down rival AI lab Anthropic, even though SpaceX now hosts its most critical infrastructure. Users on X worried that Musk might boot the company from his servers to hurt a competitor, but he dismissed the idea as "not my style." This assurance follows a massive deal signed in May where Anthropic committed 40 billion dollars over three years to rent the entire output of xAI's Colossus 1 data center near Memphis.

The dynamic has flipped completely since September 2025, when Musk posted on X that winning was never a possible outcome for Anthropic. By July 2026, the situation is reversed. Anthropic is now one of SpaceX's largest customers, paying 1.25 billion dollars monthly through May 2029 for compute power. Google also rents SpaceX infrastructure under a separate agreement worth 920 million dollars a month through June 2029.

Musk cites his history of open access as proof he will not weaponize this dependency. He pointed to Tesla's 2014 decision to stop initiating patent lawsuits against those using its technology in good faith, and the opening of its Supercharger network to competitors. He noted that SpaceX launches competing satellite systems without unfair terms or price hikes. Even with direct rivals like OpenAI, whom he has sued, Musk insists he would never cut off a customer in a way that causes severe harm.

Market reaction shows cautious relief mixed with scrutiny. Musk praised Anthropic's Mythos and Fable models as the current industry leaders, admitting his previous prediction about their failure was wrong. He stated that no company has released a model as good as Mythos or Fable yet. While stock implications are not immediate, the deal secures 40 billion dollars in revenue for SpaceX's xAI unit, validating the lab's position despite Musk's earlier skepticism.

The partnership creates a complex strategic reality where Anthropic gains massive compute capacity but relies on a direct competitor for its core operations. Contractual penalties exist if SpaceX shuts them down, yet the arrangement gives SpaceX unprecedented visibility into Anthropic's operations. This raises concerns about AI distillation, where a host could theoretically learn from a guest model's behavior while providing infrastructure. Musk himself acknowledged during his OpenAI trial that "generally AI companies distill other AI companies." Trust is fragile.

So Musk has pledged to keep the lights on for a rival, betting that 40 billion dollars in revenue and industry goodwill outweigh the temptation to cut them off. The deal locks in massive cash flow but leaves Anthropic dependent on a host with a history of litigation. Watch whether SpaceX engineers gain insights into Anthropic's models as the three-year contract ages.