SpaceX IPO Approaches: Musk Dissolves xAI to Merge into SpaceX, 300MW Computing Power Subleased to Anthropic. Can 2 Trillion Valuation Still Be Achieved?

TradingKey - On Wednesday (May 7), Anthropic reached an agreement with Elon Musk's SpaceX to access SpaceX's massive data center 'Colossus 1.' The facility boasts over 300 megawatts (MW) of computing power, equivalent to 220,000 Nvidia GPUs. Meanwhile, Musk announced that xAI would be dissolved as an independent company and renamed SpaceXAI, becoming an AI product line within SpaceX.

As early as March this year, xAI was criticized for lagging behind the industry, falling far short of top-tier AI developers like Anthropic and Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) and OpenAI. At the time, Musk's response was that xAI would catch up and close the gap by the end of 2026. However, xAI has now not only lost its status as an independent company but also its core computing facility, Colossus 1. Can SpaceX's vision for space data centers still be realized? Is SpaceX's $2 trillion valuation still justifiable?

Dissolving xAI and Merging into SpaceX: Why is Musk Abandoning xAI?

In the AI industry, computing power remains a scarce resource. Top-tier large model companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are all expanding partnerships to secure compute resources, which are currently nearly impossible to obtain off-the-shelf. For example, Anthropic signed an agreement with Google and Broadcom in April this year to co-develop compute clusters, but this capacity is not expected to gradually come online until 2027.

Currently, off-the-shelf and large-scale compute resources are undoubtedly highly coveted by large model companies. However, xAI has done the opposite by transferring over 300MW of compute capacity to Anthropic, leading the market to suspect that its core AI business may be in trouble.

According to a report by Forbes, data released in April by analytics platform Similarweb showed that user numbers for xAI's flagship product, Grok, fell sharply between March and April. In terms of mobile applications, Grok's average global Daily Active Users (DAU) dropped from 13.9 million in March to 12.2 million in April, a month-on-month decline of 12.5%. Meanwhile, other competitors grew; Anthropic's Claude saw global DAUs increase from 16 million to 23 million, a 44% gain. While Grok was the world's second-largest AI application after ChatGPT a year ago, it fell to fifth place this April, overtaken by Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek in succession.

Financially, SpaceX's revenue exceeded $18.5 billion last year, but its xAI business has been a severe drag. Internal documents released in January show that xAI spent $7.8 billion in the first nine months of 2025, burning an average of approximately $28 million per day, while quarterly losses continued to widen. xAI's net loss reached $1.46 billion in Q3 2025, a significant increase from the $1 billion loss in Q1.

In a situation where xAI's own compute demand is insufficient while losses continue to mount, Elon Musk's decision to lease out compute facilities for monetization may be the best path forward. Furthermore, some analysts suggest that Musk's decision to integrate xAI into SpaceX may be intended to downplay the narrative of it being an independent AI company; positioning xAI as a SpaceX AI product may align more with commercial logic than as a standalone AI entity.

Can SpaceX's Space-Based Data Centers Still Be Realized if Anthropic Replaces xAI?

Analysis indicates that xAI is leasing its computing facilities to Anthropic, a business model similar to CoreWeave (CRWV) and other specialized cloud computing providers. The issue, however, is that xAI lacks a clear advantage over these established cloud service providers, which could instead weigh on SpaceX and lead to a significant valuation discount.

Musk has long been committed to transforming SpaceX into an orbital AI data center. Its primary business, Starlink, would serve as the carrier for the orbital data center, providing high-speed communication between nodes; Starship would handle interplanetary logistics; chips developed by the Terafab project would be used for data center deployment; and xAI would serve as the brain of the data center, providing algorithms.

However, Musk has now admitted that xAI is "inferior" and has even transferred its computing facilities to Anthropic, signaling a move to abandon this business. Without xAI, is it still possible for SpaceX to build an orbital AI data center?

This collaboration with Anthropic may be an attempt to shift the ownership of the computing core for SpaceX's space data center. In the agreement, Anthropic expressed interest in partnering with SpaceX to develop multi-gigawatt-scale orbital AI computing infrastructure. For SpaceX, utilizing Anthropic's top-tier large model technology while SpaceX provides the computing power and construction expertise for the orbital data center may be faster than Musk rebuilding xAI from scratch.