The 'people’s airline,' SpaceXAI, and the Enterprise AI Race

Everyone wants a piece of the enterprise AI pie, and this week, we saw a string of companies making their moves. From Anthropic and OpenAI announcing new joint ventures targeting enterprise AI deployment to SAP dropping $1B on German AI startup Prior Labs, it's becoming clear that if you're a startup building enterprise tools, you're likely an acquisition target. On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the week's enterprise AI deals, the xAI-Anthropic compute arrangement, and what it all means ahead of what could be a big IPO season. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Why a TikToker is trying to crowdfund the purchase of Spirit Airlines, and whether anyone really loves Spirit enough to make it work Why Katie Haun's venture fund and Andreessen Horowitz are both raising billions to back a crypto comeback Aurora Innovation's milestone commercial trucking contract with a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, announced shortly after we caught up with Aurora’s CEO, Chris Urmson, at HumanX The Pentagon's latest AI spending spree, inking deals with Nvidia, Microsoft, and AWS Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:31 Spirit Airlines & the crowdfunded "people's airline" 03:25 xAI x Anthropic deal: is xAI becoming a NEO cloud? 13:47 Haun Ventures & a16z's crypto comeback 17:48 Aurora Innovation lands a commercial trucking contract 19:27 A big week for enterprise AI: who's actually making money? 26:45 The Pentagon's AI spending spree 31:04 Outro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices