Anthropic, SpaceX(AI) become unlikely compute partners
Anthropic has signed a compute deal with SpaceX to lease the Colossus 1 supercluster, resolving Claude's compute constraints despite Elon Musk's past criticism of the company. The newsletter also covers Mira Murati's testimony in the Musk vs. OpenAI trial, Google DeepMind's investment in EVE Online studio Fenris Creations, and various other AI industry developments.
Summary
The lead story covers a surprising partnership between Anthropic and SpaceX, in which Anthropic will lease SpaceX's entire Colossus 1 supercluster — a 300+ MW Memphis facility with over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs. This is notable given Elon Musk's recent public hostility toward Anthropic, including posts calling it 'Misanthropic' and accusing it of hating Western Civilization. The deal is framed as a strategic move serving multiple interests: it resolves Anthropic's compute bottleneck (doubling Claude Code's usage caps), hurts OpenAI by strengthening its biggest rival, and positions SpaceX's AI division as a compute-landlord business. Separately, Anthropic is also reportedly committing to a $200B, 5 GW compute deal with Google Cloud over five years.
The newsletter also covers testimony from former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI. Murati accused CEO Sam Altman of lying about a model's safety review clearance, undermining her authority, and creating leadership chaos through conflicting directives. Former board member Helen Toner testified as well, reportedly criticizing Murati as career-cautious. The testimony revisits the turbulent 2023 board saga that temporarily made Murati interim CEO.
Google DeepMind announced a minority stake investment in Fenris Creations, a spinoff from CCP Games (makers of EVE Online), with plans to use the 23-year-old MMO as an AI research sandbox. DeepMind intends to run AI agents on an offline EVE clone to test long-horizon reasoning, memory retention, and learning in a complex, living game world. CEO Demis Hassabis cited prior game-based AI milestones (Atari DQN, AlphaGo, AlphaStar, SIMA) as precedent.
Additional news briefs include: a tutorial on using Claude Design's slide deck feature, an IBM framework for CEO AI strategy, DeepSeek nearing a $45B valuation funding round, OpenAI's open-source hardware fault-tolerance tool MRC, Anthropic's new Managed Agents features, and a reader workflow using Gemini and Claude Code to build a physiotherapy tracking app.
About this episode
PLUS: Use Claude Design’s slide decks feature like a pro
Key Insights
- The author argues that Musk's decision to rent compute to Anthropic — a company he recently publicly attacked — reflects an 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' strategy aimed primarily at undermining OpenAI by strengthening its biggest rival.
- Mira Murati testified that Sam Altman falsely claimed OpenAI's legal team had cleared a model to skip safety review, a claim she verified was untrue with counsel Jason Kwon — directly supporting Musk's narrative that Altman is untrustworthy.
- The newsletter frames SpaceX's compute-leasing move as a potential new business line for SpaceXAI, suggesting the company is positioning itself as a compute landlord even while its own Grok model continues to chase frontier AI performance.
- The author argues that DeepMind's investment in EVE Online represents a meaningful shift from game-playing AI (winning discrete matches) toward agents that must operate within persistent, unpredictable, societally complex environments — a harder and more real-world-relevant challenge.
- Anthropic's reported commitment to a $200B, 5 GW compute deal with Google Cloud over five years signals that the SpaceX lease is a short-term patch, while the company is simultaneously securing massive long-term infrastructure to address its structural compute deficit.
Topics
Transcript
Good morning, {{ first_name | AI enthusiasts }}. Just months ago, Elon Musk was posting that Anthropic “hates Western Civilization” and should be renamed “Misanthropic”. Now, he’s renting them his entire Colossus 1 compute cluster. The new deal pulls off three things at once: patching Claude's compute problems, hurting Musk's nemesis OAI by feeding its biggest rival, and signaling a new compute-landlord business for SpaceXAI even as Grok keeps chasing the frontier. Anthropic, SpaceX partner in new compute deal Mira Murati speaks out in Musk vs. OpenAI trial Use Claude Design’s slide decks feature like a pro DeepMind picks EVE Online game as next AI testbed 4 new AI tools, community workflows, and more ANTHROPIC & SPACEX Image source: Images…
Full transcript available for MurmurCast members
Sign Up to AccessMore from The Rundown AI
Jeff Bezos' $41B 'artificial general engineer'
Jeff Bezos revealed more details about his AI startup Prometheus, which raised $12B at a $41B valuation with a goal of building an 'artificial general engineer' to accelerate physical product design. Anthropic faced backlash over its Fable model's invisible safety filters that downgraded answers without user notification. The 2026 FIFA World Cup debuted as the first AI-integrated tournament, with optical tracking, 3D body scans, and AI analytics wired into nearly every layer.
Anthropic writes Washington an AI regulation playbook
This newsletter covers Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's new AI policy essay urging faster regulation, SpaceX's reveal of its orbital AI datacenter satellite AI1, and OpenAI's IPO plans tied to self-improving AI timelines. Additional stories include new AI tools, industry drama around model restrictions, and a community workflow from a teacher using AI to help refugees navigate legal documents.
Anthropic hands the public Mythos-class AI
Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, a restricted public version of its Mythos-class AI that tops nearly all major benchmarks, with access limits and pricing changes coming June 22. The newsletter also covers a Perplexity/Harvard study on AI agents shifting knowledge work patterns, and profiles a self-taught Japanese farmer using AI to build his own farm automation systems.
Apple’s new Siri AI overhaul is here (sort of)
Apple unveiled its Siri AI overhaul at WWDC 2026, but analysts found it underwhelming compared to frontier models. OpenAI published a blog declaring a 'third phase' of AI development, while Argentina introduced legislation creating 'non-human corporations' run by AI systems.
Washington wants a piece of OpenAI
The Rundown newsletter covers the U.S. government's reported talks with OpenAI about taking a 1-5% equity stake to fund a public wealth fund for Americans. It also covers OpenAI's planned ChatGPT overhaul into an agentic 'superapp' centered on Codex, plus staff AI use cases and community workflows.