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0 pointsmlinsey2mo ago0 comments

Is this cash or compute? Elon has one of the world's biggest compute clusters spun up, and little inference demand to speak of.

Trading billions worth of idle compute, in exchange for a high-strike call option on the #3 player in the most-promising-vertical for AI, plus (presmuably) some access to their data, starts to sound like not a bad trade. Especially if you're pre-committed to betting your entire rocket company on winning in AI, and you're currently in sixth or seventh place.

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4 comments · 3 top-level

HWR_142mo ago· 1 in thread

> you're pre-committed to betting your entire rocket company on winning in AI

SpaceX has invested a small amount as a share of its value in XAI, and could survive the loss of its investment.

mlinseyOP2mo ago

It's true he could write off xAI today and the company could still fetch a trillion-dollar valuation. But I was more referring to his stated intentions - between his stated plans, his actions taking SpaceX from a profitable company to spending basically all their revenue (plus a rumored large chunk of what's raised via its IPO) on AI, and seeing his tendency to make bet-the-farm bets on Tesla, I think it's fair to say he's committing to bet all of SpaceX on xAI.

Barbing2mo ago

I heard he made a deal with a company to use his clusters. Is there good data on demand for Grok? Seems like relatively little chatter at least, in spite of tremendous investment.

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jacques_chester2mo ago

If it's not in an 8K filing it isn't real.

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