GoKawiilTesla Megapack batteries during a tour of the Elkhorn Battery Energy Storage System in Moss Landing, California, U.S., on Monday, June 6, 2022.
SpaceX ramped up spending on energy products from CEO Elon Musk's other trillion-dollar company, Tesla , during the period ending June 30, 2026, financial filings revealed.
Musk's aerospace and defense tech conglomerate purchased $295 million worth of Tesla Megapacks, or battery energy storage systems, that SpaceXAI has been installing to help power its Colossus data centers in the Greater Memphis area.
The second-quarter purchases bring SpaceX's half-year total spending on Tesla Megapacks to $329 million.
Megapacks are used for business and utility-scale developments, and Tesla's newer Megablocks are a combination of four Megapacks around one transformer. The systems use lithium-ion or other battery cells and help data centers and utilities avoid blackouts, allowing for energy storage from all sources, including fossil fuels and renewable and intermittent sources like solar and wind.
Tesla is not the only company making battery energy storage systems. Top competitors, according to research by Wood Mackenzie, include China's Sungrow, BYD, CATL, Korea's LG, and U.S.-based Fluence, among others.
At the SpaceXAI Colossus and Colossus 2 facilities in Greater Memphis, the company has also installed and used dozens of natural gas-burning turbines for power generation.
Emissions and noise from the turbines have led to community uproar, and helped fuel a national backlash against data center developers, with Greater Memphis residents complaining of the smell, health problems, noise and air pollution.