Musk Waves Off Anthropic Exit Talk as SpaceX Plots $74B AI Buildout

SpaceX didn't wait for the rumor mill to cool. On Nov. 12 the company announced it will sink more than $74 billion into two AI supercomputing sites — one at its Starbase facility in Texas, the other a proposed campus in Cochise County, Arizona. Texas gets more than $24 billion, and the Arizona build carries a roughly $50 billion price tag.

The Texas site will generate its own electricity instead of pulling from the public grid, and SpaceX expects more than 500 permanent jobs there. Arizona could bring about 1,000 permanent positions — if it clears the county. The application describes a 747-acre site with up to nine computing buildings and an estimated 6 gigawatts of demand at full capacity, and it has already drawn public opposition.

Regulators are circling. Cochise County's Local Emergency Planning Committee reportedly approved six recommendations at a Nov. 12 meeting covering fire protection, battery storage and emergency response, with the panel pushing for stronger safeguards before anything moves forward. County officials take up the project again on Dec. 9.

The spending spree rides on an AI business that's now the main engine. SpaceX's third-quarter SEC filing shows the Super Intelligence segment pulled in $7.56 billion — about 52% of total quarterly revenue of $14.58 billion — and posted $431 million in operating income, flipping a $1.72 billion loss from a year earlier. But the money is concentrated: Bloomberg identified Anthropic as SpaceX's largest customer, and a single client labeled Customer B accounted for 34.5% of quarterly revenue.

That dependence is why talk of Anthropic walking away rattled cages. Unverified claims suggested Anthropic might not extend its computing agreement past mid-2027, and Musk fired back on X on Nov. 11: “We would be happy to take the compute back. No problem. But I think the opposite is going to happen.”

Anthropic's own paperwork tells the bigger story. Its amended SEC filing, submitted Nov. 10, lays out computing agreements with SpaceX.AI LLC worth up to $120.5 billion, with terms running into 2029 and monthly payments expected to hit roughly $3.1 billion once all contracted capacity comes online, currently anticipated in December. Either side can walk with 90 days' written notice after initial noncancelable periods end in January and March 2027 — the same day Anthropic filed for a Nasdaq IPO under the ticker ANT, proposing 825 million shares at $70 to $78 each, a potential $57.75 billion to $64.35 billion offering before underwriting fees. Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya has argued tight supplies could strengthen SpaceX's hand, while Musk has acknowledged that cheaper, more abundant capacity could dent revenue.