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Anthropic renting out the data center Elon built for Grok is the kind of plot twist you can't make up.
by arian_ 5mo ago
Anthropic renting out the data center Elon built for Grok is the kind of plot twist you can't make up.
- brokencode 5mo agoPretty smart for SpaceX though. They’re turning an asset they made for a money-pit (Grok) into probably a major source of revenue ahead of their IPO.
- 23rf 5mo agoIts not even that. Its better to be involved in the game with a leader/help out a competitor who is competing against someone you don't like and don't want them to win, than to sit it out.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- giwook 5mo agoThe enemy of my enemy is my friend.
- bombcar 5mo agoMaxim 29: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less.
- thrownthatway 5mo agoFerengi Rule of Acquisition #76: Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.
- a4isms 5mo agoThis is something you say aloud, while muttering "useful idiot" under your breath.
- AntiUSAbah 4mo agoThats just bullshit in this corporate world. If he could fill his Datacenter with Grok use, he would make a lot more money. This is not a good sign at all.
- floatrock 5mo agoWe all remember 2 weeks ago when SpaceX bought $10B of Cursor services. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47855293 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47855293 Since Cursor often relies on Claude models, some of those services will flow back to their own datacenter compute. Especially if there's, lets call it, "customer demand loadbalancing optimization agreements" that makes those Cursor services prioritize Claude models using the app keys that get load-balanced onto the SpaceX datacenter. Did SpaceX just spend $10B to rent out its own datacenter, juicing their recurring revenue metrics with their own AI services investment?
- giwook 5mo agoI don't think it's the conspiracy theory that you're making it out to be. It is publicly known that the vast majority of deals in the AI space are circular in nature without the need for explicitly encoding any of it in a legal contract or even tacit agreements. e.g. Nvidia has invested significantly in many AI companies including both Anthropic and OpenAI which rely heavily on Nvidia's hardware and will undoubtedly use some of said investment towards that end.
- floatrock 5mo agoNvidia and Oracle are already public companies, they're just aiming for their next quarterly statements. SpaceX is getting dressed for their debutante ball and is putting on the makeup to make a grand entrance on the auction floor. Is there a difference? I legitimately have no idea. You are right that we can add another entry to the list of interconnected circular dealmakings. All this ain't gonna end well next time the music stops playing.
- svnt 5mo agoYour argument is that since it is common in a bubble to make circular deals, there is no conspiracy. But you seem to suggest that people committing tens of billions of dollars aren’t looking any further down the pipeline than the name on the receiving bank account? Have you ever been anywhere near a large deal?
- 5mo ago
- BrianGragg 5mo agoI see it more of lets make money off the hardware we are not using anymore. From Elon on X: ... After that, I was ok leasing Colossus 1 to Anthropic, as SpaceXAI had already moved training to Colossus 2. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2052069691372478511 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2052069691372478511
- philipwhiuk 5mo agoBut like... most companies are so short of GPUs they'd run it on anything. SpaceXAI not needing the compute is not really a good sign imo.
- scottyah 5mo agoAre you worried about Google too? They're selling compute. Same with Microsoft, and Amazon. As far as I know Anthropic is really the only one that's compute-bound.
- dzhiurgis 5mo ago> As far as I know Anthropic is really the only one that's compute-bound. I use gemini models daily. Jetbrains tells me when they are overloaded and switches to alternative (usually to openai which turns everything to shit). I'd say happens about fortnightly. It's a good litmus and forecaster for AI demand and I wish we had more visibility.
- fhn 5mo ago
- Thrymr 5mo agoSure, if "pretty smart" means overinvest in capital spending on an dirty datacenter powered by unpermitted gas generators that you don't even need anymore because of lack of demand for your product, so you lease it to a competitor (presumably at a huge loss). I am not sure that "major source of revenue" as a datacenter provider is the kind of growth opportunity that IPO investors are looking for.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- hx8 5mo ago> presumably at a huge loss Why do you say that? I was under the impression that everyone in the datacenter business was printing money.
- XorNot 5mo agoOracle certainly isn't.
- signatoremo 5mo agoSays who? Oracle spends a lot of money to get ready for AI customers like OpenAI. They aren't there yet. They can't lose money serving what they don't have.
- cavisne 5mo agoDefinitely not going to be leasing it at a loss. GPU's are sold out, Anthropic will be paying a significant premium.
- AntiUSAbah 4mo agoAnthropic doesn't has that much pressure to pay while Musk has an IPO coming up and he wants to cleanup his numbers. Its also not a good sign because he should be able to leverage Grok, his billion dollar investment, instead of renting it out to Anthropic. But hey what does it matter to investor? if the IPO explodes, it is clear that people either can't read, don't care or don't understand.
- ur-whale 5mo ago[dead]
- ur-whale 5mo ago[dead]
- runako 5mo agoThe financials for a Musk company do not, and will not, affect investor sentiment in the slightest. Investors in the SpaceX IPO are buying a call option on Musk.
- AntiUSAbah 4mo agoThe weird thing is, that the IPO might still work out for him and save his ass again. At least he doesn't come across as a happy person... While i'm really curious though when someone might hit him back after all the garbage he did and still does
- aurareturn 5mo agoPlot twist but makes perfect sense for both companies. Anthropic gets the compute they so desperately need to keep growing. Elon rents out compute that xAI couldn't make use of due to little demand for Grok. SpaceX gets revenue on the books for IPO. PS. I want to translate this part: We’re very intentional about where we’ll add capacity—partnering with democratic countries whose legal and regulatory frameworks support investments of this scale To real speak: We're putting profits above anything else. Yes, Elon is a far right guy who supported Trump, a president who isn't very democratic, but we're just really desperate for more money. We're also trying to make you forget that xAI is funded by Middle East non-democratic governments. Heck, we'll even buy compute from China if we can sell Anthropic models there.
- 2ndorderthought 5mo agoDon't forget the whole, "maybe this will make it easier for xAi to distill anthropic models and we can make another attempt at mechahitler"
- VortexLain 5mo ago>we'll even buy compute from China if we can sell Anthropic models there. Considering that Anthropic mass-bans Chinese users accounts based on using VPN (used to circumvent the Chinese firewall) and then demands an ID or a residence permit of a country where Claude officially works to ensure that the user doesn't live in China, seems unlikely.
- aurareturn 5mo agoIf the Chinese government tells Anthropic they can freely sell Claude in China, Dario is suddenly going to be kissing China's ass instead of saying how we can't let China win the AGI race for democracy and western values.
- BrianGragg 5mo agoAfter they told the US government no on a very large contract. I find that hard to believe.
- dboreham 5mo agoI'm just relieved to read that it isn't in fact...in space.
- georgemcbay 5mo agoI'd rather it be in space than where it is now, poisoning people in the rural parts of Memphis with off-gassing from their methane turbines.
- robwwilliams 5mo agoUrban/industrial and refinery complex; not at all rural. Located about 8 miles southwest of downtown Memphis (3231 Paul Lowery Rd) on a bend of the river.
- stevefan1999 5mo agoSPAAAAAAAACEEEEEEEEEE (it is a Portal 2 space sphere reference)
- cedws 5mo agoIt was pretty obvious to me that the merger was a way of quietly shutting xAI down in a way that keeps investors happy. With it also being used as a vehicle to offload the Twitter debt to the public, he certainly has good accountants.
- HarHarVeryFunny 5mo agoYep - and in the meantime it's an asset of SpaceX to boost their IPO price, as long as this is done before people realize that xAI is apparently becoming a datacenter company not an AI one. Then you've got SpaceX buying 1200 cybertrucks from Tesla, so it's serving as failure laundering vehicle for all his endeavors.
- nerdsniper 5mo ago> it's serving as failure laundering vehicle for all his endeavors. Which would be fine to me if Tesla wasn't a publicly traded company and SpaceX wasn't about to IPO. Whereas juicing companies in a way that affects the open stock market feels very inappropriate.
- kcb 5mo agoElon Musk has been failing any minute now since like what? 2015
- blueaquilae 5mo agoIf only those people listened to your guidance!
- HarHarVeryFunny 5mo agoI didn't say he's failing at everything - SpaceX certainly seems a huge success. Telsa had been doing well, although sales are now declining fast, and the Cybertruck has been a failure. He massively overpaid for Twitter, ruined the site, then got X.ai to bail him out. X.ai seems like a failure - evidentially not enough demand to utilize the data center he built for it, and when have you seen anyone say they use Grok for anything ? And now SpaceX investors are going to be left as the bag holders for X.ai/Twitter.
- freakynit 5mo agoExcess money and influence makes a lot of things possible. Evil or good, that's a separate discussion.