Elon Musk Admits He Was Wrong About Anthropic After Calling It AI’s Top Player

TLDR

• Musk acknowledged on X that he was “clearly wrong about Anthropic” and recognized it as the present AI industry leader
• SpaceX and Anthropic entered a compute agreement in May valued at $1.25 billion monthly extending to 2029
• The Tesla CEO had previously labeled Anthropic as “woke,” “hypocritical,” and claimed victory was impossible for the company
• In June, Anthropic submitted a confidential IPO filing in the United States following a valuation approaching $1 trillion
• The company’s coding capabilities through Claude and its Cowork offering fueled significant expansion in recent months

Elon Musk has made a stunning about-face regarding Anthropic, now declaring the artificial intelligence company the industry’s current leader. In a Thursday post on X, Musk admitted he had been “clearly wrong about Anthropic.”

“They are obviously currently the leader in AI,” Musk stated. “No company has released a model as good as Mythos/Fable and they will undoubtedly have Mythos 2 ready soon.”

A Complete 180 Following Sustained Criticism

This endorsement represents a stark departure from Musk’s previous rhetoric. Back in January, he mockingly suggested that Anthropic’s “fate is to be misanthropic.” By February, he had accused the organization of data theft “at massive scale.” During the same period, he claimed that “Anthropic hates Western Civilization.”

Come March, Musk labeled Claude as “woke” and charged Anthropic with incorporating left-leaning ideology into its artificial intelligence systems. The previous September, he had declared that “winning was never in the set of possible outcomes for Anthropic.”

The transformation in Musk’s stance emerged after a substantial commercial arrangement between SpaceX and Anthropic. The May announcement revealed a compute partnership granting Anthropic access to over 300 megawatts of computing power from SpaceX’s Colossus 1 facility. This translates to more than 220,000 Nvidia GPUs.

According to SpaceX’s S-1 documentation, Anthropic committed to monthly payments of $1.25 billion running through May 2029. Both organizations maintain the option to terminate with 90 days’ advance notice.

Musk Denies Intent to Sabotage Rival

Musk’s Thursday statement emerged while addressing an X user who proposed that SpaceX possessed the power to “kill Anthropic” by terminating compute availability. Musk rejected this suggestion outright.

“I would never cut them off in a way that hurt them badly, even as a competitor,” he explained. “That’s not my style.”

When the collaboration was unveiled on May 6, Musk revealed he had met with key Anthropic personnel and found the experience positive. “Everyone I met was highly competent and cared a great deal about doing the right thing,” he shared.

Despite his newfound respect, Musk continues to regard Anthropic as competition. On May 26, he emphasized that his AI company is merely three years old—half Anthropic’s age—and expressed interest in comparing progress after another three-year period.

Anthropić originated in 2021 through former OpenAI leadership, including CEO Dario Amodei. The company’s Claude Code functionality attracted significant developer interest, while its Cowork platform broadened appeal to users without technical backgrounds.

The organization filed confidentially for a United States IPO in June, shortly after securing funding that placed its valuation near $965 billion. Neither Anthropic nor SpaceX representatives provided comments when contacted.