SpaceX taps Starlink's Michael Nicolls to run AI data centers after outages

Michael Nicolls, a senior Starlink executive, has been handed control of SpaceX’s AI infrastructure following a series of leadership departures. 

SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) faces growing pressure to maintain stable operations for its compute customers, including Google and Anthropic.

What went wrong with SpaceX’s data centers? 

Michael Nicolls has been appointed to oversee xAI’s infrastructure after several senior data center executives left the company over the recent weeks. 

The system Nicolls will be taking over is one SpaceX has bragged about building at a low cost. The company said its second data center brought its first two computing clusters online for roughly a quarter of what is typically paid in the industry. However, the company did not spell out which expenses were included in that estimate.

The Information reported that SpaceX compromised other factors in order to build its data centers quickly. For instance, xAI’s Macrohard site used temporary equipment to get running, including mobile gas turbines, Tesla Megapack batteries, and more than 100 portable chillers. 

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