Citadel Flags AI Token Spending Drop as SpaceX IPO Looms

According to Citadel Securities, enterprises are cutting AI token spending due to cost pressures, the fund said in a macro note released on June 10. In the past month, Amazon killed its internal KiroRank token leaderboard after engineers gamed it, Microsoft cancelled Claude Code for 5,000 staff over token bills, Meta scrapped a similar leaderboard in April, and Uber's CTO admitted the company exhausted its entire 2026 AI coding budget in four months.

Citadel's analysis argues frontier AI will concentrate among a handful of firms with balance sheets to absorb compute costs, while others cut back. The timing coincides with SpaceX's IPO launching today after close at an estimated $1.77 trillion valuation, heavily weighted to its xAI compute business. Anthropic and OpenAI also have filings pending, betting on sustained token demand. SpaceX's opening performance on Friday is expected to signal broader risk appetite in the AI trade.