Elon Musk built Colossus in record time. The Memphis supercluster, packed with hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs, was meant to power xAI and its Grok models. Now that same facility sits at the center of an unusual arrangement. Anthropic has taken all of it. But the terms keep shifting. And the landlord appears ready to show his tenant the door sooner than expected.
Last week Gizmodo reported Musk is already preparing to evict Anthropic from SpaceX’s data center. The story followed Musk’s own statements on X. He described the arrangement as a 180-day lease with mutual 90-day cancellation notice after that. “SpaceX has not committed to leasing Colossus for years, although it’s possible that may happen,” he wrote. Short and direct. Then came the qualifier. “The short term was our request, not Anthropic’s. We won’t leave them hanging and will provide a reasonable off-ramp, but if compute gets super tight I said we might need it back at some point.”
Those words landed like a surprise. Only weeks earlier the deal looked settled. Anthropic announced it would use every watt of Colossus 1. More than 300 megawatts. Over 220,000 Nvidia chips. Capacity that would go live within a month. The agreement promised immediate relief for surging demand on Claude Pro and Claude Max. Subscribers would see higher limits. Enterprise workloads could expand. CNBC detailed the announcement, noting Anthropic also expressed interest in partnering on multiple gigawatts of orbital AI compute capacity developed with SpaceX.
But the financial picture told a bigger story. SpaceX’s S-1 filing, prepared ahead of its anticipated IPO, revealed Anthropic agreed to pay $1.25 billion per month through May 2029. The total could exceed $40 billion. First two months carried a discount while ramp-up finished. Either party could walk with 90 days notice. TechCrunch broke down those numbers after they surfaced in the IPO documents. The filing framed the pact as a way “to monetize unused compute capacity in our infrastructure.” SpaceX added it expected more such contracts. “We believe our dual monetization strategy provides multiple pathways to generate returns on invested capital.”
Unused. That word carried weight. xAI had poured billions into Colossus. Reports placed 2025 infrastructure spending at $12.7 billion with another $7.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone. Musk merged xAI into SpaceX earlier this year, dissolving it as a standalone entity and rebranding the AI efforts as SpaceXAI. The data centers became part of a larger machine. One that now needed to show revenue to investors valuing SpaceX at potentially $1.75 trillion or more.
Anthropic gained breathing room. Its own models demanded ever more compute. Claude variants kept improving. Usage limits had constrained growth. The Colossus capacity let the company turn on new features fast. One recent update to Opus 4.8 reportedly consumed the full cluster during rollout, delivering higher throughput and new thinking-effort modes. Yet the landlord’s tone changed quickly.
Musk’s earlier comments about Anthropic had been harsh. In February he posted that the company “hates Western civilization.” After meeting its leaders last month his view softened. “Everyone I met was highly competent and cared a great deal about doing the right thing. No one set off my evil detector,” he wrote. “So long as they engage in critical self-examination, Claude will probably be good.” The deal followed. Now the lease looks temporary. A test run. Proof that compute can be rented out at scale.
Observers spotted the tension immediately. The S-1 presented a three-year commitment with clear monthly payments. Musk’s X thread emphasized flexibility and a short initial period. The discrepancy suggested negotiations continued or priorities shifted as IPO preparations intensified. SpaceX wants clean metrics. Recurring revenue from AI infrastructure looks attractive on paper. But if internal needs spike, Colossus 2 or future clusters might not suffice. The company has already expanded in Memphis. Satellite images and local reports show rapid construction, though power and cooling constraints remain real.
Environmental questions linger too. Early operations at the site relied on gas turbines running without full permits, drawing criticism over air quality. Those details surfaced in earlier coverage but faded as the compute race accelerated. Now the focus sits on who controls the GPUs. Anthropic pays handsomely. Yet it operates under a sword of Damocles measured in days, not years.
Interest in orbital data centers adds another layer. Both companies signaled openness to putting compute in space. Lower latency for certain workloads, different power economics, radiation hardening challenges. SpaceX has filed for up to a million satellites to support such ambitions. The Wall Street Journal reported Google is in talks with SpaceX on related launch deals for its own orbital efforts. The Anthropic pact explicitly left room for future gigawatt-scale cooperation in orbit. Whether that materializes depends on trust built during the terrestrial phase. A short lease tests that trust.
So far Anthropic has stayed quiet on the eviction signals. No public response to Musk’s latest thread. Its leadership likely weighs options. Secure alternative capacity. Accelerate internal efficiency gains. Or accept the risk of sudden disruption in exchange for immediate scale. The $1.25 billion monthly outlay already strains budgets, yet it fuels revenue growth. Analysts project Anthropic’s quarterly run rate could exceed $10 billion soon thanks to this and other deals.
The arrangement reveals deeper truths about the AI race. Compute remains scarce despite massive builds. Hyperscalers and startups alike scramble for GPUs. Musk controls one of the largest clusters on the planet. He can rent it, reclaim it, or repurpose it. That flexibility carries strategic value ahead of public markets. It also creates uncertainty for customers. A 90-day notice changes planning horizons dramatically.
Recent X discussions reflect the confusion. Users debate whether the deal was always meant to be temporary or if Musk is rewriting terms to bolster SpaceX’s IPO narrative. Some call it savvy business. Others see it as classic Musk unpredictability. One post noted the irony. The data center built for Grok now trains a rival’s models. At least until the landlord decides otherwise.
Longer term the pattern may repeat. SpaceX signals openness to more compute customers. Additional clusters could come online. Orbital prototypes might follow. Yet the core tension persists. Internal AI ambitions compete with external revenue goals. Anthropic bet on access. Musk bet on control. The coming months will test which bet pays faster. Capacity will ramp. Payments will flow. And the possibility of an abrupt move-out notice will hang over every training run.
Nothing is permanent in this market. Not leases. Not alliances. Not even the largest clusters. Musk built Colossus to chase intelligence at scale. Now he rents it out while keeping one hand on the off switch. The eviction preparations, whether literal or contractual, send a clear message. In AI infrastructure, the owner sets the rules. Everyone else adapts. Fast.
WebProNews is an iEntry Publication