Elon Musk has defended the massive multibillion-dollar computing deal between AI powerhouse Anthropic and SpaceX after an engineer claimed that Anthropic’s multiyear partnership – under which it will get access to roughly 325,000 Nvidia GPUs across the space giant’s Colossus data centers for $1.25 billion per month – amounts to the “biggest unforced error of the AI era.” The Tesla CEO argued that SpaceX will be “worth more than the rest of Earth” if the company accomplishes its goals.
What is controversy around Anthropic-SpaceX deal
The debate centers around a massive compute agreement that sees Anthropic pouring anywhere from $7.5 billion to $40 billion into SpaceX’s expanding AI infrastructure to train its AI systems. The engineer points out a conflict of interest: SpaceX’s sister venture, xAI, is developing Grok 4.5—a direct, top-tier competitor to Anthropic’s flagship Claude models.The engineer argued that Anthropic is effectively subsidising its biggest rival by financing a competitor that will use the cash flow to develop world-class data centers and orbital AI infrastructure. He also claims that if everyday users shift to SpaceX’s Grok for routine tasks and only use Anthropic’s Claude for specialized, high-end work, Anthropic’s growth could stall.
What Elon Musk said
Elon Musk responded, implying that SpaceX has bigger aims than just developing an AI model, and if the goals set by the company are met, it will be worth more than the rest of Earth.“You don’t seem to understand that SpaceX will be worth more than the rest of Earth if we accomplish our goals,” Musk said in response to the criticism on X (formerly Twitter).Musk’s claim that SpaceX will eventually outweigh the financial value of the entire planet comes shortly after SpaceX’s market capitalisation shattered records following its June 2026 IPO, officially making Musk the world’s first trillionaire.Yet, despite his company’s soaring valuation, the world’s richest man claims that money itself will eventually become completely useless.In a recent conversation with XPrize Foundation Executive Chairman Peter Diamandis, Musk outlined a post-scarcity “moonshot” future driven by advanced AI and autonomous robots. Musk argued that as robotic labor replaces human workforce demands, the cost of manufacturing goods and providing services will plummet to practically zero.“AI and robots are going to make so much stuff and provide so many services that they’ll run out of things to do for humans. I think money will stop being relevant at some point in the future,” Musk said.When Diamandis asked if money will lose its value, the billionaire simply replied, “Yeah, pretty much.”