Elon Musk posted a candid admission on his social media platform X on June 9, declaring that he had been \u201cclearly wrong\u201d about Anthropic. The statement marked a notable reversal from his earlier skepticism toward the AI company.\n<\/p>\n
In September, Musk had written, \u201cWinning was never in the set of possible outcomes for Anthropic<\/a>,\u201d reflecting his view at the time that the startup had lacked the foundation or even the trajectory to succeed in what is an incredibly intense race for advanced artificial intelligence.\n<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s latest post came amid discussion of Anthropic\u2019s reliance on external compute resources. He praised the company\u2019s progress, stating that Anthropic is \u201cobviously currently the leader in AI\u201d and that \u201cno company has released a model as good as Mythos\/Fable,\u201d with expectations of a strong follow-up in Mythos 2.\n<\/p>\n The tone shifted dramatically from dismissal to acknowledgement of superior performance.<\/p>\n I was clearly wrong about Anthropic. They are obviously currently the leader in AI. No company has released a model as good as Mythos\/Fable and they will undoubtedly have Mythos 2 ready soon.\n<\/p>\n And I would never cut them off in a way that hurt them badly, even as a competitor.\u2026\n<\/p>\n \u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 9, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The context of Musk\u2019s comments added significance. Anthropic has been operating under a recent compute deal with SpaceXAI<\/a>, Musk\u2019s AI infrastructure-focused venture. The pair entered a short-term GPU lease agreement initiated in May, providing Anthropic access to critical computing power for training and deploying its frontier models.<\/p>\n SpaceXAI signs agreement with Anthropic for massive AI supercomputer access<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Some observers had speculated that Musk could leverage this dependency to disadvantage a rival. Musk directly addressed the possibility, writing, \u201cI would never cut them off in a way that hurt them badly, even as a competitor<\/a>. That\u2019s not my style.\u201d\n<\/p>\n To support his commitment to ethical competition, Musk referenced concrete examples from his other companies. Tesla famously open-sourced its entire portfolio of electric vehicle patents in 2014<\/a>. The move was designed to accelerate the global adoption of sustainable transportation technology rather than protect proprietary advantages.\n<\/p>\n Tesla also made its Supercharger network available to competing electric vehicle manufacturers, transforming what could have remained an exclusive charging ecosystem into a shared infrastructure that benefits the broader industry and reduces barriers for EV adoption.<\/p>\n Musk further pointed to SpaceX\u2019s practices, noting that the company launches satellites for competing commercial systems \u201cwith no increase in price or use of unfair terms.\u201d He extended the principle to his social platform, observing that \u201ceven my worst enemies attack me on this platform,\u201d underscoring preference for open discourse over retaliation.\n<\/p>\n These examples have illustrated Musk\u2019s long-standing philosophy that long-term technological progress is best served by open competition and infrastructure sharing rather than leveraging market power to stifle rivals. In the fast-evolving AI sector, where compute resources and model capabilities determine leadership, Musk\u2019s stance suggests a willingness to compete on innovation and performance alone.\n<\/p>\n\n
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