xAI's Colossus builders defect to OpenAI, leaving SpaceX with an $18.4 billion quarterly bill

OpenAI hires the Colossus commissioning lead

Michael Roberson ran end-to-end commissioning on xAI'sPVT$200B — xAI, private, latest valuation $200B Colossus, Macrohard and Macroharder clusters. He has joined OpenAI's infrastructure division↗ to carry data centers "from construction through testing and into operations," he wrote, and four named SpaceXAI colleagues came with him: site lead Aakash Verma, Amin Golnabi, project manager Andrej Sulek and construction project manager Johnathan Henley. Roberson spent a year at the lab, left in April for three months at Fluidstack, then crossed over. ¹

Third name in eight months

The unit they left has worn three names since February. SpaceX▲+1.40% — SpaceX, up 1.40 percent today bought xAI on February 2, 2026, in a deal valuing the combined company at $1.25 trillion; Musk said in May the lab would be dissolved; SpaceXAI arrived July 6. ²

The trigger came from Washington. On September 29 Trump ordered federal agencies to say "Super Intelligence" instead of artificial intelligence; on October 4 Musk posted that the name would become SpaceXSI. By October 11, per the one outlet reporting it, The Standard (Hong Kong), the unit read SpaceX Super Intelligence; as of October 6 there had been no formal announcement, only the posts. ²³

The bill lands on SPCX shareholders

The label is free; the build is not. SpaceX, trading as SPCX, spent $18.37 billion in the second quarter↗ against $7.81 billion of revenue, $15.83 billion of it on AI compute, for a net loss of $541 million after a $4.95 billion loss the quarter before. ²⁴

The AI division itself brought in $2.56 billion, up 247 percent. Starlink, the only profitable arm, was worth $2.2 trillion as of Friday on more than 12 million subscribers, the cushion under the lab's spending. ²⁵

The war study, and the xAI stake its commissioner sold

On September 30 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth commissioned Project Meridian, a 120-day study of future war↗ led by Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich, report due January 28, 2027. SpaceX holds more than $6.4 billion in active Pentagon contracts; AndurilPVT$116.89B — Anduril, private, latest valuation $116.89B, Luckey's firm, holds a counter-drone award worth up to $642 million. MITRE administers the study and reviews advisers' conflicts. ⁶⁷

The official Hegseth directed to commission it, Emil Michael, sold an xAI stake disclosed at $500,000 to $1 million for $5 million to $25 million↗ on January 9, eighteen days after the agreement paving the way for Grok on GenAI.mil. NPR names him the Defense Department's chief technology officer; Yahoo News styles him undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. Representative Sam Liccardo is pressing the Pentagon for answers↗. ⁶⁷⁸

Full compliance, say officials; a massive conflict, say critics

Michael sold under a divestiture order issued December 18, and the Pentagon says its officials "are in full compliance with ethics laws and regulations," with MITRE applying "appropriate conflict-of-interest safeguards." Richard Painter, the Bush White House's ethics lawyer, says he "never saw anywhere near as many financial conflicts of interest in any other administration"; a former senior Defense Department official, granted anonymity, calls the arrangement "a massive conflict of interest." ⁷⁸

Two dates settle it

Two dates settle it: the Q3 report, where AI revenue meets the $15.83 billion quarterly compute bill, and January 28, when Meridian lands. No source says the departures have slowed the build; the drain is visible, its cost is not. Congress is already circling the renamed lab's crown jewels, with Ro Khanna asking five firms, the Musk unit included, how they guard model weights against Chinese theft↗. ²⁹¹⁰