SpaceX Taps Starlink’s Nicolls to Stabilize Faltering AI Data Centers

SpaceX has placed Michael Nicolls, a senior Starlink executive, in charge of its AI infrastructure after a string of leadership departures. The move comes as the company struggles to maintain reliable operations for its compute clients, which include Google and Anthropic.

Nicolls inherits a system that SpaceX touted as cheap to build—the second data center came online at roughly a quarter of industry cost. But the low price tag came with trade-offs. At the Macrohard site, temporary equipment such as mobile gas turbines, Tesla Megapack batteries, and more than 100 portable chillers led to repeated outages that disrupted AI model training. Uptime consistently fell below the internal target of 99.9%.

Some facilities in Tennessee and Mississippi reportedly operated for months without backup cooling or power. The pressure to stabilize operations is mounting as demand for AI compute surges across the sector.