SpaceX's IPO filing has done what xAI itself never has, it put a hard number on the cost of Elon Musk's AI push.
The filing, reviewed by Reuters, shows that xAI burned through $6.4 billion in 2025, a figure that gives investors a rare look at how aggressively Musk's AI business is spending to keep up with OpenAI and Anthropic. It also makes clearer why the company's expansion has been tied so closely to SpaceX's balance sheet and infrastructure, rather than to any steady stream of public disclosure.
That number matters because xAI has remained largely private and opaque even as it has moved at remarkable speed. Reuters reported in late April that the AI division, which includes xAI, accounted for 61% of SpaceX's $20.74 billion in capital spending last year, while the division itself posted an operating loss of $6.4 billion. In other words, the business is not just burning cash, it is doing so at a rate that now defines a meaningful part of the broader Musk empire.
The disclosure arrived through SpaceX's S-1 filing, the registration statement companies submit when preparing for an IPO. That is what makes the moment unusual, because xAI did not choose to reveal these figures on its own. The filing created a narrow but revealing window into a company that has otherwise offered little financial detail, even as it has become one of the most closely watched names in the AI race.
The burn rate also helps explain the scale of xAI's buildout. Reuters previously reported that Musk's AI venture had been pouring money into data centers, chips, and engineering talent as it tried to scale fast enough to compete with better-capitalized rivals. Earlier reporting also linked the company to a $2.8 billion Memphis data center acquisition, which already signaled that the infrastructure race was becoming central to the strategy. The latest filing suggests that this spending has only intensified.
That is the uncomfortable part for anyone watching the business from the outside. A company can talk about frontier models, product velocity, and technical ambition for a long time, but eventually the economics show up. At $6.4 billion in annual burn, xAI is no longer a side bet. It is a capital-intensive wager on whether Musk can build an AI platform large enough to matter before the money gets tighter.
Why the burn matters now
The timing is important because the broader AI market has started to reward scale, but only for firms that can sustain it. Reuters reported in June 2025 that xAI was already expected to burn about $13 billion over the course of that year, which suggests the 2025 figure disclosed in the SpaceX filing fits a larger pattern rather than a one-off spike. The company's spending trajectory looks less like a carefully rationed startup and more like a race to secure computing power before the next round of model development makes today's infrastructure feel inadequate.
That is also why the Anthropic tie-up drew so much attention. In early May, CNBC and Reuters reported that Anthropic had struck a deal to use the full compute capacity of SpaceX's Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, a facility originally built for xAI. The agreement underscored just how valuable those assets have become, even when they are not being used solely by Musk's own AI business.
For xAI, that creates a strange picture. On one hand, the company is investing heavily enough to build serious infrastructure. On the other, the same infrastructure can generate outside revenue, which suggests Musk is trying to squeeze more economic value from every watt of capacity. That is a rational move when spending is running this hot. It is also a sign that the company's capital strategy is becoming as important as its model strategy.
It would be easy to treat the $6.4 billion figure as a curiosity. It is not. It is a reminder that the AI boom is being financed by companies willing to spend first and justify later, and xAI may be one of the clearest examples of that approach. The filing does not answer whether the company can win, but it does show the price of staying in the game.
Also read: Jensen Huang is widening Nvidia's target far beyond chips • Nvidia's $43 Billion bet on startups tightens its grip on the AI stack • Nvidia's startup bets are turning its AI dominance into a strategic moat
