Elon Musk publicly acknowledged Anthropic as the leading company in artificial intelligence, admitting he was “clearly wrong” about the startup he had previously disparaged as unlikely to succeed. Musk’s remarks represent a notable reversal for the SpaceX and xAI chief, whose Grok models compete with Anthropic’s Claude family.
Musk praised Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable models, which were released on June 9 and recognized as among the most advanced AI systems available. These models were briefly taken offline following U.S. government export controls on June 12, but access was restored on July 1 after the restrictions were lifted.
The SpaceX CEO pledged not to “cut off” Anthropic or interfere with its access to computing resources. Anthropic has been leasing SpaceX’s Colossus 1 supercomputer cluster since May, under a 180-day agreement that grants them exclusive access to over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and more than 300 megawatts of compute capacity. Musk clarified that while the lease includes a mutual 90-day cancellation clause, SpaceX “won’t leave them hanging.”
Anthropic’s valuation reached $1.2 trillion on secondary markets, an increase from a $965 billion post-money valuation following its $65 billion Series H round announced in late May. The company’s annual recurring revenue rose from $9 billion at the end of 2025 to over $60 billion.
SpaceXAI’s Grok 4.5, released this week, demonstrated strong benchmark results against Claude Opus 4.8, Anthropic’s flagship model. Musk’s endorsement of Anthropic is seen as unusual given the competitive overlap, suggesting that the revenue SpaceX earns from compute leasing may be influencing his stance.
Anthropic’s Fable 5, which targets enterprise needs, is available on major platforms including Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Foundry. Its coding-focused capabilities have contributed to over $1 billion in quarterly profit, indicating substantial traction in the enterprise sector.
Musk’s recent comments highlight the rapid shifts in the AI industry and the potential impact of commercial relationships on public statements between competing companies.
