Live data from Hacker News

Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

cnbc.com

31–40 of 1001 posts

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#31
post #8

Another way to read this is, "Twitter's AI dept. has been doing so badly they don't have a use for billions of dollars of hardware they bought."

The downfall of Twitter is one of the most spectacular self inflicted business failures I have ever witnessed. Amazing to think it was once so ingrained in mainstream society.

What metrics are you using to classify it as a downfall?

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#32

> SpaceX said in the filing that if it fails to “deliver access to the committed amount of GPUs by September 30, 2026,” Google can immediately end the agreement, or accept the number of GPUs provided at a reduced fee after a one-month grace period. > After this year, the agreement can be terminated by either party provided they give 90 days’ notice. Circular financing at its peak for the IPO. There has to be some reg…

There is nothing shady or circular in the text you quoted

I avoided adding too many details, made a base assumption that folks on this topic would already be aware of google's investment in spaceX, probably should have added that too

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#33

Tangent alert: a couple of questions for folks who know far more than I do about compute capacity and Google these days... Lately, like the past few months, I've noticed Google services (search, gmail, drive, maps) running very slowly to the point where, at the moment it happens, I always think it has to be my connection and not Google, but sure enough every time I check a couple of speed tests and they're... fine. A…

Maybe agentic PRs made it to production and performance cratered.

On a serious note I feel the same. Google is slow these days and the slowest and least reliable service of them all is Gemini. Sometimes I don't even know if it hang already (no error messages) or if it's still "thinking".

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#34
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you even want to use that dumpster fire of a model in the first place..?

Probably because it has all but zero filters on the input and output. It took widespread media outrage about "grok show me her in a bikini" to at least create a filter that bans such things. [1] https://counterhate.com/research/grok-floods-x-with-sexualiz...

[deleted]

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#35
post #4

I thought it was notable that in Google's press release yesterday regarding their new facilities near Amarillo they seemed to go out of their way to point out that the applications are not AI, listing "Search, Gmail, Maps, Cloud, online banking, and 911 systems" instead. I wonder if they find it more convenient to rent an existing one rather than face public scrutiny for building another "AI data center".

I wonder if they are more than happy to let someone else take on the burden of the massive writedowns that are bound to hit in a couple of years.

Perhaps. It also seems to insulate Google from the risk that air quality regulators will be unexpectedly reinvigorated, while still providing to Google the benefits of xAI's lawlessness.

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#36

Which means more Grok degradation, more severe throttling, etc. I can't understand why xAI charges 50% more per month for Grok over competitors when it doesn't even gracefully downgrade to a cheaper model when paid subscribers hit the limit.

Who uses Grok? Not even SpaceX engineers that is known...

I've used/use it. For a while it had one of the best lightweight coding LLM's, which actually lead to a #1 spot on openrouter usage ranking although they've fallen off the top 10 used now. It's also provided some good reasoning models, which perform better when dealing with non-PC topics.

Also, although I've never used it for this, I believe some of the paid models produce some of the best "adult" content, and I know there are even subreddits which do nothing but praise Grok and "content" produces who use it.

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#37

> SpaceX said in the filing that if it fails to “deliver access to the committed amount of GPUs by September 30, 2026,” Google can immediately end the agreement, or accept the number of GPUs provided at a reduced fee after a one-month grace period. > After this year, the agreement can be terminated by either party provided they give 90 days’ notice. Circular financing at its peak for the IPO. There has to be some reg…

> Circular financing Keep in mind, Google has a 6% stake in SpaceX, so this is more like exchanging millions to gain billions.

Yeah, I just looked this up because my first thought was another circular financing deal (or not circular by definition but certainly backscratching). Looks like Google's SpaceX stake, diluted, based on a cursory search, at a $1.5T valuation is somewhere in the $80-$100B neighborhood (bought back in 2015 I think is what it said when SpaceX was valued in the low tens of billions if I'm remembering correctly). So you have Google sending $12B back to SpaceX annually in this deal, so maybe 12% or so of their equity stake at that valuation. I'm not sure how to feel about it other than a means of swaying people to buy into the IPO with the added benefit of actual compute value.

And seems silly to ignore that the Google founders and Elon are buddies, or were, based on which gossip rag you believe in, and there's zero chance these types of deals are being made independent of those guys talking (when are they ever, of course, but it's even more obvious in this case given the players and their histories).

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#38

Which means more Grok degradation, more severe throttling, etc. I can't understand why xAI charges 50% more per month for Grok over competitors when it doesn't even gracefully downgrade to a cheaper model when paid subscribers hit the limit.

They already make it required to have a premium X account

Claude has tons of throttling already. Chat GPT is not as accurate at computational problems despite less throttling. Gemini has fewest restrictions but worse quality. Always a tradeoff.

Re: Google to pay SpaceX $920M a month for compute capacity at xAI data centers

#39
google: we are commited to carbon free data centers by 2030 (https://sustainability.google/reports/247-carbon-free-energy...)

also google: renting capacity from a data center powered by 27 methane gas turbines on trailers

https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2026/4/whitehous...

Post reply on HN