Musk changes the Anthropic Colossus agreement to a six-month lease.

      Elon Musk stated on Wednesday that SpaceX did not enter into a multi-year lease of its Memphis Colossus 1 data center with Anthropic, clarifying that the actual agreement is for 180 days with a mutual cancellation option of 90 days. This clarification goes against reports that framed the deal as a three-year, $1.25 billion-per-month contract expiring in May 2029. According to Musk's posts on his X account, the agreement is a base lease of 180 days, followed by the possibility for either party to cancel with a 90-day notice.

      “The short-term arrangement was our request, not Anthropic's,” Musk explained. “We won't leave them in a tough spot and will offer a reasonable exit, but if our computing needs become critical, I mentioned that we might need access back at some point.”

      This clarification is significant as it aligns with the timing of SpaceX's IPO preparations, which were filed last week. The S-1 filing includes a reference to the 90-day cancellation feature but does not confirm the six-month base lease term that Musk publicly stated. The discrepancy between the original reporting and Musk's clarification about the lease length is likely to raise questions from analysts and potential investors during the roadshow scheduled to begin in June.

      Additionally, it is worth noting that Anthropic announced earlier this month that they have full access to the computational resources of Colossus 1, originally designed to train xAI’s Grok. This facility has over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and offers more than 300 megawatts of computing power. The reported monthly rent was set at $1.25 billion, which Anthropic quickly utilized to increase rate limits for customers of its Claude Code and Opus API products, specifically mentioning the SpaceX deal.

      By this time, xAI had transitioned its model training to Colossus 2, a larger and newer facility, making Colossus 1 available for leasing externally. The essential change reported today concerns the interpretation of the lease duration; a 180-day base term with a 90-day cancellation option represents a significantly different financial commitment compared to a 36-month agreement.

      For SpaceX, this shorter lease allows for greater flexibility to reclaim computational resources if the demand for Grok training or internal SpaceX-xAI needs increases. For Anthropic, this arrangement serves as a short-term solution rather than a long-term data center dependency, as previously assumed by analysts.

      Anthropic’s public comments regarding the agreement, especially the announced increases in Claude rate limits, suggested an expectation of a more extended arrangement than what Musk has now confirmed. The IPO disclosure issue is a concern for SEC lawyers since SpaceX, a private entity pursuing a public listing, is required to disclose significant commercial agreements that could affect revenue.

      A three-year contract with a total potential value of $45 billion ($1.25 billion × 36) contrasts with a six-month agreement with a maximum value of $7.5 billion ($1.25 billion × 6), assuming no extension occurs. The S-1’s reference to the 90-day cancellation option without mentioning the 180-day lease term highlights the ambiguity between these two interpretations.

      The relationship between Musk and Anthropic is particularly interesting, as Musk has previously described Anthropic in a negative light, referring to it as “Misanthropic” and a competitor to xAI.

      With all 11 co-founders of xAI having departed over the last year and the company reporting a $6.4 billion operational loss on $3.2 billion in revenue for 2025, falling short of the growth rates achieved by Anthropic and OpenAI, the decision to lease Colossus 1 to Anthropic is reasonable given xAI's underutilization and the timing of SpaceX's IPO. Today’s adjustments imply that Musk seeks the option to retract the agreement if conditions change. Neither SpaceX nor Anthropic has publicly commented on the clarification regarding the lease term through formal channels, and the SpaceX IPO roadshow is set to commence on June 8.