New Delhi, July 10 -- In a surprising U-turn, Elon Musk has gone from taking aim at Anthropic to applauding its progress in AI development. The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive recently said that the startup is "the leader in AI".

His public spat with Sam Altman of OpenAI is well known. Anthropic too has frequently been in Musk's crosshairs. Over the years, he has called Anthropic "hypocritical," "misanthropic and evil," and an inevitable loser in the AI race.

Reversing his previous stance, Musk on Thursday acknowledged that he had been wrong about IPO-bound Anthropic, which has positioned itself as one of world's most valuable AI startup, with a pre-IPO valuation of nearly $1 trillion.

"I was clearly wrong about Anthropic. They are ob...