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Image Credits:Nic Coury/Bloomberg / Getty Images2:07 PM PDT · August 4, 2026
SpaceX has ramped up purchases of Tesla Megapack, spending $295 cardinal connected the artillery retention devices successful the 2nd 4th and $329 cardinal truthful acold this year, according to the company’s earnings report released connected Tuesday.
The acquisition illustrates conscionable however interconnected Elon Musk’s beingness of companies are. Musk, who is the CEO and largest shareholder of SpaceX, besides runs Tesla. Musk’s artificial quality concern xAI acquired his societal media platform, X, successful 2025. Earlier this year, SpaceX gobbled up xAI.
The industrial-scale batteries are apt being deployed astatine the company’s xAI information centers. Before xAI merged with SpaceX, the AI institution bought $430 cardinal worthy of Megapacks for its information centers. In the archetypal 4th of this year, xAI had purchased lone $34 cardinal worthy of the equipment. SpaceX besides reported that arsenic of December 2025, it had acquired $131 cardinal worthy of Tesla Cybertrucks astatine manufacturer’s suggested retail price, according to its regulatory filing.
Though xAI has leaned heavy connected earthy state to powerfulness its information centers — including dozens of unpermitted turbines astatine a tract successful Mississippi not acold from the Colossus information halfway task — ample batteries similar the Megapack are inactive a captious portion of information centers.
In summation to providing important backup powerfulness that tin beryllium tapped successful a 2nd oregon less, batteries tin supply other powerfulness to GPUs erstwhile they request it. AI information centers don’t gully powerfulness consistently. Rather, their powerfulness request ramps up and down depending connected the demands of grooming AI models and moving inference.
Such peaks tin incur important charges from a section inferior oregon overwhelm on-site generators. Batteries assistance creaseless retired those peaks, lowering costs portion ensuring that the information halfway tin run consistently.
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Tim De Chant is simply a elder clime newsman astatine TechCrunch. He has written for a wide scope of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, wherever helium was founding editor.
De Chant is besides a lecturer successful MIT’s Graduate Program successful Science Writing, and helium was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship astatine MIT successful 2018, during which clip helium studied clime technologies and explored caller concern models for journalism. He received his PhD successful biology science, policy, and absorption from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA grade successful biology studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
You tin interaction oregon verify outreach from Tim by emailing tim.dechant@techcrunch.com.
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