Elon Musk and SpaceX’s own SEC filing can’t seem to agree on how long Anthropic is renting the Colossus supercomputer. According to TechCrunch AI, Musk took to X this week to downplay the scale of the compute deal SpaceX struck with Anthropic, calling it a short-term arrangement. The problem? SpaceX’s S-1 filing describes something much bigger and much longer.
Here’s what we know.
The deal everyone celebrated
Earlier this month, xAI signed a major compute agreement giving Anthropic exclusive use of its Colossus cluster. TechCrunch AI reports it was a win for both sides. xAI got badly needed revenue, and Anthropic got a way to close the gap in the relentless race for compute capacity.
That part isn’t in dispute. The duration is.
Two stories, one deal
Replying to a user on X, Musk said: “SpaceX has not committed to leasing Colossus for years, although it’s possible that may be what happens. This is a 180 day lease with 90 day notice mutual cancellation thereafter.” He added that the short term was SpaceX’s request, not Anthropic’s, and that the company “might need it back at some point” if compute gets tight.
SpaceX’s S-1 filing tells a different story. Page F-62 spells out a cloud services agreement signed May 3, 2026, under which Anthropic “has agreed to pay a monthly fee through May 2029.” That’s a three-year commitment, not a six-month one.
And it’s not a typo. As TechCrunch AI notes, the same language repeats on page F-96, and pages 13 and 146 get even more specific: Anthropic “has agreed to pay us $1.25 billion per month through May 2029.” Both versions confirm the 90-day cancellation clause, so that detail checks out. The disagreement is entirely about the headline length.
xAI did not respond to TechCrunch AI’s request for clarification.
Why this matters
What stands out here is the timing. These statements weren’t made in a casual press scrum. The S-1 is a formal securities filing, and Musk’s comments came during what’s known as a company’s quiet period, the window before a public offering when executives are supposed to be careful about what they say publicly about the business.
Saying “180 day lease” while your own filing markets a “$1.25 billion per month through May 2029” deal isn’t a small gap. TechCrunch AI frames it bluntly: this looks like “a material misrepresentation made while marketing a security.”
There’s also a logic problem in Musk’s framing. If either party can walk away with 90 days’ notice anyway, why insist the lease is only 180 days? The cancellation clause already gives both sides an exit. The three-year figure is about the commitment on paper, not a lock-in that traps anyone.
The bigger picture
For anyone tracking the AI compute arms race, the dollar figure is the real signal. $1.25 billion a month is roughly $15 billion a year, and a three-year term would put the deal in the $45 billion range. That’s the scale of money now changing hands just to keep frontier models training.
It also shows how tangled the alliances have become. xAI is a direct competitor to Anthropic, yet it’s renting Anthropic the hardware to compete. Revenue talks louder than rivalry when the compute bills run this high.
Will regulators act? TechCrunch AI is skeptical, noting the SEC “probably will not do anything,” and even if it did, Musk likely wouldn’t care. So the practical takeaway for readers is simpler: when you see a headline number on one of these mega compute deals, check the filing, not the founder’s posts.
For now, the filing says three years. Musk says six months. Until SpaceX or Anthropic clarifies the actual contract, treat the duration as an open question. You can read the full reporting at the original source.