Why Hassabis Chose Google Over Musk for DeepMind

In 2014, DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis faced a funding crisis after VC backers pulled out. He chose Google's $650 million acquisition offer over Elon Musk's alternative, citing Google's superior compute resources and long-term research capacity. Twelve years later, the decision looks prescient. Alphabet's stock has risen over 1,000% since the deal, DeepMind's Gemini models now serve 750 million monthly users, and Google Cloud revenue hit $17.66 billion in Q4 2025. Alphabet plans $175-185 billion in AI infrastructure spending for 2026.