Tesla Megapack batteries throughout a tour of the Elkhorn Battery Power Storage System in Moss Touchdown, California, June 6, 2022.
Nic Coury | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
SpaceX ramped up spending on power merchandise from CEO Elon Musk‘s different trillion-dollar firm, Tesla, through the interval ending June 30, 2026, monetary filings revealed.
Musk’s aerospace and protection tech conglomerate bought $295 million value of Tesla Megapacks, or battery power storage techniques, that SpaceXAI has been putting in to assist energy its Colossus information facilities within the Better Memphis space.
The second-quarter purchases carry SpaceX’s half-year complete spending on Tesla Megapacks to $329 million.
Megapacks are used for enterprise and utility-scale developments, and Tesla’s newer Megablocks are a mix of 4 Megapacks round one transformer. The techniques use lithium-ion or different battery cells and assist information facilities and utilities keep away from blackouts, permitting for power storage from all sources, together with fossil fuels and renewable and intermittent sources like photo voltaic and wind.
Tesla is just not the one firm making battery power storage techniques. Prime rivals, in accordance with analysis by Wooden Mackenzie, embody China’s Sungrow, BYD, CATL, Korea’s LG, and U.S.-based Fluence, amongst others.
On the SpaceXAI Colossus and Colossus 2 services in Better Memphis, the corporate has additionally put in and used dozens of pure gas-burning generators for energy era.
Emissions and noise from the generators have led to group uproar, and helped gasoline a nationwide backlash towards information middle builders, with Better Memphis residents complaining of the odor, well being issues, noise and air air pollution.
The NAACP has sued SpaceXAI, which was previously often known as xAI, in a federal court docket in Mississippi to attempt to cease Musk’s firm from the continued use of the generators with out air pollution controls or federal permits.
On SpaceX’s second-quarter earnings name, Musk mentioned the corporate additionally plans to quickly develop its AI infrastructure and energy vegetation.
“Our tentative goal is to truly have 20 gigawatts of energy and cooling reside on-line by the tip of subsequent 12 months,” he mentioned.
Some tasks “will not pan out precisely on time,” he added, “however I’d count on that we might nonetheless most likely have on the, on the energy plant stage, one thing shut to fifteen gigawatts.”
Final 12 months, earlier than it was a publicly traded firm, SpaceX purchased $506 million of Megapack merchandise from Tesla, and spent one other $131 million on Tesla Cybertruck automobiles, which it mentioned had been bought at producer’s instructed retail costs with out reductions.
The Cybertruck purchases by SpaceX got here as shoppers’ curiosity within the angular metal pickups had waned, and following a myriad of security recollects. SpaceX didn’t disclose any additional purchases of Cybertrucks within the first half of 2026.
