Elon Musk admits he was wrong about Anthropic, praises rival as current AI leader

Elon Musk praises Mythos/Fable, promises not to 'cut off' Anthropic

Should Anthropic trust Elon Musk to host its models? After users on X implied that Musk could wake up one day and simply boot the AI lab from SpaceX's servers as a way to kneecap a rival, Musk replied with glowing praise for the AI lab. He said that such a trick was "not my style." "I was clearly wrong about Anthropic," Musk wrote on Thursday, referring to his September 2025 post on X in which he said, "Winning was never in the set of possible outcomes for Anthropic." Of course, even at that time, Anthropic could already be considered a winner; the company was reported to have the biggest AI market share with enterprises. It seems those anti-Anthropic days are behind Musk -- and not just on X. As of July 2026, Anthropic is one of SpaceX's largest customers. To recap: Anthropic signed a deal in May to buy 300 megawatts of compute, the entire output of xAI's Colossus 1 data center near Memphis, Tennessee. (Musk's xAI merged with SpaceX in February.) Anthropic agreed to pay $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, a deal worth about $40 billion in revenue for SpaceX's xAI unit. Google, by the way, also signed a deal to rent SpaceX infrastructure through June 2029, for $920 million per month. Musk insists that this wasn't a dangerous decision by Anthropic and that he's full of admiration for the rival. "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. And I would never cut them off in a way that hurt them badly, even as a competitor. That's not my style," he wrote. He offered as proof of his don't-squeeze-competitors style Tesla's decision in 2014 (which was outlined in a now deleted company blog post and now housed under its patent pledge) to not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use its technology. He also noted that Tesla opened its Supercharger network and charging port design to competitors. "SpaceX launches competing satellite systems with no increase in price or use of unfair terms. Even my worst enemies can attack me on this platform," he wrote, listing another example. Of course, Musk is not exactly above tactics aimed at rivals, especially those with whom he has a history. He sued OpenAI, for instance. Anthropic doesn't have to rely on Musk's sticking to his "style" though. There would certainly be contractual consequences if Musk suddenly shut down Anthropic's infrastructure. Not to mention the massive benefits for SpaceX to keep that deal intact. Not only does Anthropic pay handsomely, but SpaceX's engineers may learn how to build for, and support, Anthropic's rapidly growing AI , just like Amazon's engineers do. That proximity might have other benefits as well. During his trial against OpenAI, Musk acknowledged that AI "distilling" was real -- a process in which one model maker sets up many fake accounts to send prompts to a competitor in order to learn how it works. As the New York Times reported, when a lawyer asked him if xAI had ever distilled technology from OpenAI, Musk replied: "Generally AI companies distill other AI companies." Anthropic in February, accused three Chinese model makers of doing this to Claude. Presumably, Anthropic and Google feel they have safeguards against SpaceX doing this while they are using its infrastructure. But hosting Anthropic's compute could still give SpaceX greater visibility into how the company operates than most competitors would ever have. There appears to be nothing but upside for Musk's company in this partnership at the moment. As for tomorrow, and as the three-year contracts ages, who knows?

Elon Musk admits Anthropic leads the AI industry

Elon Musk publicly acknowledged Anthropic as the leading company in artificial intelligence, admitting he was "clearly wrong" about the startup he had previously disparaged. His remarks denote a significant change for Musk, who heads SpaceX and xAI, businesses whose Grok models compete with Anthropic's Claude models. Musk's praise centered on Anthropic's Mythos and Fable models, released on June 9, which are regarded as among the most advanced AI systems available. The models faced a temporary offline period after the U.S. government imposed export controls on June 12, but access was restored on July 1 following the Commerce Department's withdrawal of restrictions. Musk assured that he would not "cut off" Anthropic or interfere with its access to computing resources. This reassurance is particularly relevant as Anthropic has been leasing SpaceX's Colossus 1 supercomputer cluster in Memphis, Tennessee, since May. This 180-day lease grants Anthropic exclusive access to over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and more than 300 megawatts of compute capacity. The lease includes a mutual 90-day cancellation clause, but Musk emphasized that SpaceX "won't leave them hanging." Anthropic's valuation reached $1.2 trillion on secondary markets, a significant increase from a $965 billion post-money valuation during its $65 billion Series H round announced in late May. The company reported an increase in annual recurring revenue from $9 billion at the end of 2025 to over $60 billion, according to SemiAnalysis. In contrast, SpaceXAI's Grok 4.5, released this week, showed strong benchmark results compared to Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8. This competitive overlap raises questions about Musk's endorsement of Anthropic, suggesting financial ties stemming from the compute-leasing arrangement may be influencing his stance. Anthropic's Fable 5 model is available across platforms including Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Foundry, signaling strong enterprise traction. The model's performance, particularly in coding tasks, has contributed to more than $1 billion in quarterly profit, underscoring the impact of robust commercial gains.

Elon Musk says Anthropic is the current AI leader, praises Mythos and Fable models

Elon Musk now calls Anthropic the industry's current leader in artificial intelligence. He admitted being clearly wrong about the AI startup's potential outcomes. Anthropic is a major customer of Musk's SpaceXAI infrastructure company. The AI startup uses SpaceXAI's supercomputer for its advanced models. Musk stated he would never harm a competitor, citing Tesla and SpaceX examples. Elon Musk has praised artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic, saying it is the industry's current frontrunner, in a significant shift from his earlier criticism of the company.Responding to a user on X, the billionaire entrepreneur said he had been 'clearly wrong' about Anthropic and described it as 'currently the leader in AI'. He also said no company had released a model comparable to Anthropic's latest ones, Mythos and Fable.

Elon Musk Admits He Was 'Clearly Wrong' About Anthropic -- and Promises Not to Weaponize SpaceXAI's Compute

Elon Musk publicly reversed his earlier view of Anthropic on Thursday, saying he was "clearly wrong" to doubt the AI company and pledging not to use SpaceXAI's compute leverage to harm a competitor. Musk Calls Anthropic Current AI Leader "I was clearly wrong about Anthropic," Musk wrote on X. "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." TechCrunch reported that Musk was referring to his September 2025 post that said, "winning was never in the set of possible outcomes for Anthropic." Musk added that he would not cut off Anthropic's access in a damaging way, even though Anthropic competes with his own AI business. "I would never cut them off in a way that hurt them badly, even as a competitor. That's not my style," he wrote. Anthropic Depends On SpaceXAI Compute Deal SpaceXAI said in May that the partnership gives Anthropic access to Colossus 1, which includes more than 220,000 Nvidia GPUs and is designed for AI training, fine-tuning, inference and high-performance computing. SpaceXAI also said Anthropic plans to use the compute to improve capacity for Claude Pro and Claude Max subscribers. The comments came after Anthropic's June launch of Claude Fable 5 and restricted Mythos 5, while SpaceXAI countered July 8 with Grok 4.5, a model Axios described as aimed at coding and agentic work. IPO Plans Add Public Market Stakes Musk's softer tone does not erase his history of hardball tactics. In May, OpenAI defeated Musk's lawsuit accusing the company of straying from its founding mission, with a jury finding he sued too late. Anthropic is also moving toward public markets. Reuters reported that the Claude maker confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering on June 1, though timing and terms remain undisclosed. Image via Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Elon Musk says he was wrong about Anthropic

Anthropic runs some of the most powerful AI models in the world on computing hardware it doesn't own. The company signed a deal in May to lease the full capacity of SpaceX's Colossus 1 supercomputing facility in Memphis, paying roughly $1.25 billion a month through 2029. That arrangement gives Musk's company an unusual kind of leverage over one of his biggest rivals. Someone on X pointed that out to Musk directly. The user suggested that if Musk wanted to, he could effectively kill Anthropic by cutting off its compute access. Musk's response was not what most people expected. What Musk posted and why it's significant Musk replied on July 10 and did something he rarely does: admitted a rival had beaten him. The full post walked back everything he'd said about Anthropic over the past year. "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. And I would never cut them off in a way that hurt them badly, even as a competitor. That's not my style. Tesla open sourced its patents and we made the Supercharger network available to all competitors, even though we could have made it a walled garden. SpaceX launches competing satellite systems with no increase in price or use of unfair terms. Even my worst enemies can attack me on this platform," Musk wrote on X. More Elon Musk: He wasn't randomly praising a competitor. He was responding to a user who pointed out that SpaceX controls the computing infrastructure Anthropic relies on to run its models: over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs at the Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, which CNBC reported Anthropic is paying roughly $1.25 billion a month to access, according to TechCrunch. The user suggested Musk could "kill" Anthropic if he wanted. Musk's response was to say publicly he wouldn't. How sharply this reverses what Musk had been saying Musk's comments on Anthropic over the past year tell a very different story. In September 2025, he wrote that "winning was never in the set of possible outcomes for Anthropic." In January 2026, he joked that the company's "fate is to be misanthropic." It got sharper in February, when Anthropic raised $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation. Musk accused the company of stealing training data "at massive scale," called its Claude models "misanthropic and evil," and wrote that "Anthropic hates Western Civilization." In March, he asked publicly: "Is there a more hypocritical company than Anthropic?" The shift started in May, though. On May 6, the same day the Colossus 1 partnership was announced, Musk wrote on X that he'd spent time with senior Anthropic team members and was impressed. "Everyone I met was highly competent and cared a great deal about doing the right thing. No one set off my evil detector," he said. Even then, he held the door open for competition, noting SpaceXAI is only three years old and suggesting the picture could look different in three more years. July 10 dropped that caveat entirely. What Anthropic's models actually achieved to force this Musk specifically named Claude Mythos 5 and Claude Fable 5. Anthropic launched both models in June 2026 before the Trump administration restricted access under an executive order requiring national security reviews of frontier AI systems. The U.S. government was concerned about suspected Chinese hackers accessing Mythos. Fable 5 was restored for users on July 1 after export controls were lifted. Mythos remains under tighter access restrictions. Independent benchmarks back up what Musk said. Artificial Analysis, a service that rates AI models based on independent performance data, places three Anthropic models at the top of its rankings. Grok 4.5, which SpaceXAI launched on July 8, two days before Musk's post, is described as the "top non-Anthropic model." Musk acknowledged Anthropic's lead the same week he released a model specifically designed to compete with them. What this means for the AI race and investors watching it Musk's post lands differently than a typical compliment from a competitor because of what it comes alongside. He leads SpaceXAI, which only officially rebranded this week after merging with xAI earlier this year. His company is competing directly with Anthropic on models while simultaneously acting as Anthropic's infrastructure provider. He controls the compute Anthropic depends on and just said publicly that Anthropic's models are the best available. For investors, it's a useful data point on where the AI race actually stands. Musk made a comment on May 26 that framed the longer picture: SpaceXAI is three years old, Anthropic is six, OpenAI is twelve. He wasn't conceding the race then. He's not conceding it now. What he's saying is that Anthropic has the lead today, and it's earned. Anthropic is private, so there's no direct ticker to watch. But what happens to Anthropic shows up everywhere: in the AI spending decisions of public companies using its models, in the valuations of cloud providers like Google supplying its compute, and in the pressure it puts on every public AI company competing against Claude. When the CEO of SpaceXAI calls Anthropic the current leader, that shapes how the people making those spending decisions think about who's ahead. The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc. This story was originally published July 11, 2026 at 10:47 AM.

Elon Musk Praises Anthropic as Users Wonder if SpaceX Could Pull the Compute Plug

Musk's sudden shift of allegiance towards Anthropic appears to be motivated by his hatred for Sam Altman and OpenAI We knew it. And we had reported it too when Elon Musk's xAI suddenly woke up and launched a new AI model Grok 4.5 that its purpose had no strategic purpose. They went ahead because on the same day Sam Altman's OpenAI had received the go-ahead from the White House to roll out its "smartest yet" AI model GPT-5.6 to the world. He just wanted to distract public attention and that's what happened as everyone reported on xAI's sudden about-turn from selling excess inference capacity to Anthropic and Google to actually launching a new AI model. That the world's first trillionaire has shifted allegiance to Anthropic is quite obvious. And it became even more so as Musk waxed eloquent about Anthropic via his X handle. And, this after users on the platform seemed to suggest that he would wake up one day and boot the AI lab from SpaceX's servers as a way to kneecap a rival. "I was clearly wrong about Anthropic," Musk said referring to his September 2025 post on X in which he said, "Winning was never in the set of possible outcomes for Anthropic." He also stated that booting out someone at short notice was "not my style." Looks like the anti-Anthropic days of Musk are behind him now - not just on X but in the real business sense. The SpaceX boss had signed a deal two months ago to sell 300MW of compute from their Colossus 1 datacentre in Memphis, Tennessee. And Anthropic agreed to pay $1.25 billion each month through to May 2029, which adds up to $40 billion in revenue for SpaceX. Musk says this move isn't fraught with danger for Anthropic and that he actually admires his rival Dario Amodei. "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. And I would never cut them off in a way that hurt them badly, even as a competitor. That's not my style," he wrote on X. He offered as proof of his don't-squeeze-competitors style Tesla's decision in 2014 (which was outlined in a now deleted company blog post and now housed under its patent pledge) to not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use its technology. He also noted that Tesla opened its Supercharger network and charging port design to competitors. From Anthropic's point of view, they've risen above believing Musk and actually got the deal documented with clear contractual obligations if services are shut down suddenly. After all, Amodei and his team would have been carefully observing Musk in action against OpenAI and Sam Altman during the hearings on the former's lawsuit. So, one can safely say that there is nothing but upside for Musk and his company in this partnership - at least for the moment. What is destined for tomorrow? Well, that is a story that only time can tell over the next three years.

Musk calls rival Anthropic the current frontrunner in AI By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Elon Musk said on Thursday that artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is "obviously" the current leader in AI, offering rare praise for a rival as competition intensifies among the industry's biggest players. Musk made the comment in response to a post on X discussing the performance of leading AI models. He did not elaborate on the basis for his assessment. Anthropic has emerged as one of the leading AI developers, challenging OpenAI, Google and Musk's xAI with its Claude family of models, particularly among software developers using AI for coding. Anthropic's rise accelerated late last year following the launch of Claude Opus 4.5, an advanced AI model widely praised for its coding capabilities. The model gained rapid adoption among software developers and AI researchers, with many in the tech community describing themselves as "Claude-pilled" as they shifted from rival AI assistants. The company's momentum was further boosted by the rollout of Claude Cowork, which expanded its appeal beyond programmers by enabling businesses and non-technical users to automate research, writing and workplace tasks. Those product launches helped cement Anthropic's position as one of the fastest-growing AI companies and a leading challenger to OpenAI. The company was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives, including Chief Executive Dario Amodei. Its Claude Code coding assistant has gained traction in Silicon Valley, helping cement Anthropic's position as one of OpenAI's strongest competitors. Anthropic confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering in June, weeks after securing a funding round that valued the company at about $965 billion, setting the stage for what could become one of the largest AI listings.