SpaceX, just one week after confidentially filing for an initial public offering, is already generating ripples of uncertainty, largely courtesy of its enigmatic leader, Elon Musk.
Days before the reusable rocket manufacturer is slated to commence its investor roadshow, Musk took to X, the social media platform he owns through SpaceX, late Wednesday to offer a clarification on a key aspect of the company’s recent data center partnership with AI startup Anthropic. His pronouncement revealed a detail about their agreement that was notably absent from SpaceX’s extensive IPO filing.
Earlier this month, SpaceX announced it would be leasing unused compute capacity at its Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee, to Anthropic. The prospectus filed last week stated that Anthropic had agreed to pay SpaceX “$1.25 billion per month through May 2029, with capacity ramping in May and June 2026 at a reduced fee.” Crucially, the filing also stipulated, “The agreement may be terminated by either party upon 90 days’ notice.”
However, Musk’s statement on X contradicted this, asserting, “SpaceX has not committed to leasing Colossus for years,” and characterizing the pact as a “180 day lease with 90 day notice mutual cancellation thereafter.” This starkly contrasts with the prospectus’s implication of a multi-year commitment.
The discrepancy between Anthropic potentially paying SpaceX $15 billion annually for three years versus a substantially shorter, more limited engagement is a significant consideration for prospective investors. SpaceX’s total revenue for 2025 was $18.7 billion. The addition of compute capacity leasing as a revenue stream, positioning SpaceX as a competitor to nascent “neocloud” providers like Nebius and CoreWeave, presents a new and potentially lucrative, yet now uncertain, dimension to its financial profile.
For investors already grappling with the prospect of the largest IPO on record and a company valued at over $1 trillion, which is also known for its substantial quarterly cash burn, Musk’s latest pronouncement exacerbates concerns about the transparency of SpaceX’s financial disclosures.
“The odd thing is that either Musk is correct and the S-1 is materially misleading, or the S-1 is correct and Elon is up to his old hijinx,” noted Eric Talley, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert on corporate governance, in an email. “But more than that, it creates significant confusion for investors attempting to value SpaceX.”
Anthropic declined to comment for this report, and SpaceX representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
The Anthropic disclosure is not the only area in SpaceX’s filing drawing scrutiny from analysts for its perceived lack of thoroughness.
Franco Granda, an analyst at PitchBook, cataloged a series of omissions in a report following the prospectus’s publication. He highlighted “critical disclosures are missing,” pointing to a lack of detail regarding “subscriber churn” and “unit economics” for the Falcon 9 rocket. Furthermore, Granda noted insufficient granularity in the “AI segment,” specifically the absence of breakdowns for subscriptions to the Grok chatbot or X, and a lack of clarity on the “utilization rate on 1.0 GW of deployed compute.”
The Economics of AI
The AI segment of SpaceX presents a particularly complex valuation challenge for investors.
Musk established xAI in 2023 with the ambitious goal of competing with industry leader OpenAI in the burgeoning generative AI market. While xAI currently occupies a niche position, Musk’s valuation of the business at $250 billion in February, prior to its merger with SpaceX, which created a combined entity valued at $1.25 trillion, underscores its strategic importance. According to the prospectus, SpaceX’s capital expenditures soared to $10.1 billion in the first quarter of this year, more than doubling year-over-year, with a substantial $7.7 billion attributed to xAI. This burgeoning AI unit, now operating as SpaceXAI, recorded an operating loss of $2.5 billion during the same quarter.
SpaceX’s decision to lease its compute capacity to Anthropic can be interpreted as an acknowledgment that its internal AI models and services have not yet generated sufficient demand, and that the company is not currently positioned to fully capitalize on its significant infrastructure investments. Musk’s statement on X suggested a pragmatic approach, emphasizing the need for flexibility should demand for compute power increase.
“We won’t leave them hanging and will provide a reasonable off-ramp,” Musk wrote, referring to Anthropic. “But if compute gets super tight I said we might need it back at some point.”
Cathie Wood of Ark Invest, a known proponent of SpaceX, lauded Musk’s initiative to monetize the company’s compute infrastructure, which represented a massive investment for xAI. Following the deal’s announcement on May 9, Wood commented, “Thanks to its deal with Anthropic, XAI, now SpaceXAI, is pivoting from massive losses at Colossus to significant profitability as a neocloud.” At the time, she projected this move could generate $5 billion to $6 billion in annual revenue.
This projection was made before the IPO filing revealed a potentially larger revenue figure, and certainly before Musk’s recent clarification, which inadvertently highlighted potential shortcomings in the official filing.
Ann Lipton, a law professor at the University of Colorado, suggested that as SpaceX prepares its S-1 for the offering, it might consider “fil[ing] the tweet with an explanation.” While acknowledging that Musk’s post appears to contradict the filing, she believes the differences may be “reconcilable.”
“Usually this is handled by filing an update separately with the [Securities and Exchange Commission],” she wrote via email.
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