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

      Elon Musk stated on Wednesday that SpaceX has not entered into a multi-year lease of its Memphis Colossus 1 cluster with Anthropic, clarifying that the arrangement consists of a 180-day lease with a 90-day mutual cancellation option. Musk refuted reports that framed the deal as a three-year contract worth $1.25 billion per month, valid until May 2029. According to Musk’s posts on X, the actual agreement is a 180-day base lease with a 90-day cancellation option for both parties afterward.

      Musk explained, “We requested the short term, not Anthropic.” He assured that they would not leave Anthropic in a difficult position and would offer a reasonable exit strategy, but he also noted that SpaceX might need the compute back if demand becomes very high.

      This clarification is significant as it occurs during the SpaceX IPO roadshow period, with the company having filed for its public listing last week. The S-1 form mentions the 90-day mutual cancellation clause in the agreement but does not anchor the deal to the six-month base term that Musk has now publicly clarified. The discrepancy between initial reports and Musk’s statements will likely raise questions among analysts and potential investors during the upcoming roadshow, which begins in June.

      To recap, Anthropic announced recently that it would gain access to the full computing capacity of Colossus 1, initially created for training xAI’s Grok. This facility is equipped with over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and has a computing capacity exceeding 300 megawatts. The monthly rental figure was reported at $1.25 billion, and Anthropic quickly used the increased computing capacity to raise rate limits for Claude Code and Opus API users, specifically referencing the SpaceX agreement.

      By that point, xAI had already transitioned its model training to Colossus 2, a larger and more advanced facility, freeing Colossus 1 for external leasing. The significant change today concerns the lease duration. A 180-day base term with a 90-day cancellation option represents a distinctly different commercial obligation compared to a 36-month deal.

      For SpaceX, this shorter term allows flexibility to reclaim computing resources if the demand for Grok training or other internal SpaceX-xAI needs increase. For Anthropic, the Colossus capacity serves as a temporary solution rather than a long-term data-center base, contrary to the initial assumptions made by analysts.

      The nature of the IPO disclosure will be a focus for SEC attorneys, as SpaceX, being a private company, must disclose significant commercial agreements that could impact revenue. A 36-month contract valued at $45 billion cumulative ($1.25 billion multiplied by 36) is fundamentally different from a six-month term with mutual cancellation totaling at most $7.5 billion ($1.25 billion multiplied by 6) if no extension occurs. The S-1 mentions the 90-day cancellation provision but does not address the 180-day base term, highlighting the difference between these two interpretations.

      Additionally, the relationship between Musk and Anthropic is peculiar, as Musk has publicly referred to Anthropic as “Misanthropic” and viewed it as a rival to xAI over the past two years. All 11 co-founders of xAI have left in the last year, and xAI itself reported a loss of $6.4 billion in operations against $3.2 billion in revenue in 2025, with growth trailing behind that of Anthropic and OpenAI.

      Renting Colossus 1 to Anthropic was already a rational commercial decision given xAI's capacity usage and the timing of SpaceX’s IPO. Today’s adjustment implies that Musk seeks the option to retract the agreement should circumstances warrant it. Neither SpaceX nor Anthropic issued formal comments regarding the clarification on the lease term. The SpaceX IPO roadshow is set to commence on June 8.