Anthropic has entered into a cooperation with Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX and secured computing capacity from the supercomputer Colossus. The AI company’s goal is to significantly increase the usage limits of its chatbot Claude. But the deal is surprising and strange. Because: A few months ago, Musk described Anthropic as anti-human, which is now betraying his values. A commentary analysis.
Anthropic: That’s behind the 5 billion deal with SpaceX
- According to an announcement from Anthropic, the company has secured “the entire computing capacity” of SpaceX’s Colossus 1 AI data center. The computing power should be 300 megawatt hours per month, which is the monthly Consumption of a medium-sized German city corresponds. Colossus is considered one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. It was used to train the AI chatbot Grok from Elon Musk’s company xAI. Musk’s space company SpaceX now manages the supercomputer. With Colossus 2, a newer model took over Grok’s training at the beginning of 2026.
- According to a report in the Wall Street Journal (€), Anthropic has around 1,000 new computing capacity five billion US dollars per year cost. It is intended to benefit subscribers of the Pro and Max versions of the chatbot Claude. The current tariff limits of five hours are to be doubled. The AI model Claude Opus should also be significantly improved as a result of the deal. The token window has increased approximately tenfold, according to Anthropic. In other words: the maximum amount of text that the AI can take into account for its answers.
- Anthropic is considering using SpaceX data centers in space for its AI models in the future. There is also an interest in a community Development of orbital computing capabilities of several gigawatts. The background: After Elon Musk brought his AI company xAI and Grok under one roof with SpaceX in February 2025, he declared that he would soon use solar energy in space to operate orbital data centers.
Why the Musk deal threatens Anthropic’s credibility
SpaceX and Anthropic’s partnership is quite surprisingas their two bosses, Elon Musk and Dario Amodei, have been in a public clinch since the beginning of 2026. Anthropic has also presented itself as a responsible player and positioned Claude as an alternative to ChatGPT and Grok.
In addition, Anthropic is a… plays into the hands of direct competitors. Sure: the company receives computing power that it urgently needs for its AI models. But you also fill the war chest of Elon Musk and his corporate universe.
From a purely technical point of view, Anthropic is achieving more than just an AI update with the deal. Increasing Claude’s context window tenfold is nothing short of a liberation. In the coming years, the company also plans to invest almost $100 billion in additional deals with Amazon, Google, Broadcom, Microsoft, Nvidia and Fluidstack. This is a clear message to OpenAI.
But after Anthropic had recently built a responsible image, you now get entangled in contradictions. On the one hand, the company only wants to work with democratic actors. On the other hand, with Elon Musk you are now tied to someone whose political views are considered authoritarian. In doing so, Anthropic is simply betraying its own values.
Voices and reactions
- Anthropic in a post on
- SpaceX boss Elon Musk also writes on his platform
- AI entrepreneur Satvik Paramkusham points out: “A strange deal – SpaceX has made an agreement with Anthropic! Three months ago, Elon Musk called Anthropic misanthropic. Today he is giving them all 220,000 GPUs from Colossus 1 – one of the world’s largest AI supercomputers. Business precedes arguments. Every. Single. Time.”
Will Anthropic suffer the same fate as OpenAI?
OpenAI lost a lot of trust after the company announced a cooperation with the US military. Anthropic, which had previously consciously distanced itself from a similar deal, was able to benefit significantly from this. Numerous users migrated from ChatGPT to Claude.
But while OpenAI is still grappling with its loss of image, Anthropic is thriving through its cooperation with SpaceX a path that could do the same damage to the company as it did to its major competitor. With Elon Musk, they have brought a controversial partner on board, who repeatedly appears on his platform X through right-wing populist statements, election manipulation and a lack of handling of disinformation, hate speech and sexist content.
That means: Anthropic could also be one significant loss of image threaten. However, the hunger for computing power apparently seems to be greater than moral distance. Meanwhile, Elon Musk will earn even more money and gain power through the deal.
The problem: these Power shifts can have a significant impact on many people’s everyday lives. Musk has already proven this several times by manipulating opinions about X and using his Internet satellite service Starlink as a means of exerting pressure on Ukraine.
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