Elon Musk’s SpaceX has committed to spending more than $2.8 billion in recent months to buy gas plants to power data centers for its artificial intelligence unit, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing Wednesday.
The big investment shows Musk is doubling down gas plantseven after SpaceX’s use of them has sparked public complaints, lawsuits, and regulatory questions about whether the company may be polluting the air with carbon emissions and evading environmental requirements.
Power shortages are the biggest obstacle to data center growth trending across the United States. Portable gas turbines—operable generators without drawing power from the grid– have been viewed as quick and temporary solutions until more stable energy sources come online.
In addition to launching rockets and selling satellite networks, SpaceX also owns Musk’s xAI division, which makes Grok. To support chat and other AI efforts, xAI operates a pair of data centers known as Colossus 1 in Memphis, Tennessee, and Colossus 2 in Southaven, Mississippi. SpaceX leases access to some servers in Colossus data centers to $15 billion annually for Anthropicthe AI startup that makes the Claude chatbot. Musk said Wednesday that SpaceX plans to sign additional contracts.
The new information on SpaceX’s energy consumption is part of a wave of disclosures in the company’s prospectus for its initial public offering, long document which is designed to help potential investors understand the company’s financial health and long-term risks. SpaceX aims to debut on the Nasdaq stock market in the coming weeks.
In March, SpaceX agreed to buy $805 million worth of turbines from an undisclosed company through 2029, according to an IPO filing. Then, in late April, Musk’s company reached a deal worth $2 billion for mobile gas turbines and related products with an unnamed vendor. The plan is still pending.
last week, WIRED reported that 19 new boosters had been added to Colossus 2 over the past two months, for a total of 46 units. Boosters can be operated without a clean air permit for a year, a rule that SpaceX has used to its advantage. Some of the plants were added after the NAACP and other advocacy groups sued xAI, alleging that the company had been operating 27 gas plants without proper permits, endangering public health and the climate.
As of March, SpaceX had enough servers between the two data centers to use about 1 gigawatt of energy, which is about as much electricity as a large American city. But the company expects to continue to grow, which will increase its demand for power. SpaceX has more than $14 billion in construction in progress, including the value of data center equipment that is not yet operational, according to a Wednesday filing.
