Darryl Cuttell has filed liens through his construction company claiming a combined $136,892,782.78 from the entities behind Elon Musk’s Memphis data centre campus.
Who is SpaceXAI? SpaceXAI is the artificial intelligence division of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. It was formed in May 2026 when xAI, the standalone company behind the Grok chatbot, merged into SpaceX. xAI had itself acquired the X platform (formerly Twitter) in March 2025. SpaceXAI operates the Colossus supercomputer campus in Memphis, the data centre site at the centre of Darana Hybrid’s lien filings.
The liens involve Darana Hybrid, Inc., a separate company from the IHRA, and have no established connection to the IHRA’s own payment issues with racers and vendors, which Powerboat News has covered separately.
Cuttell’s finances are relevant to anyone following his involvement with powerboat racing in the US this season.
Powerboat News has obtained and reviewed both liens from the Shelby County Register of Deeds in Memphis.
The first lien, instrument number 26064953, recorded 31 July, claims $118,246,160.35 for work at 5420 Tulane Road in Memphis. The property owner named in the filing is MZX Tech, LLC. Darana Hybrid states the work ran from 27 February 2025 to 23 June 2026.
The second lien, instrument number 26064556, recorded 30 July, claims $18,646,622.43 for work at 3231 Paul R. Lowry Road, the former Electrolux plant that houses SpaceXAI’s original Colossus 1 site.
The owner named here is CTC Property, LLC. This is the older dispute by some margin, Darana Hybrid states the work began 10 March 2024, more than two years before the lien was filed.
Neither document names SpaceXAI directly.
Both name MZX Tech, LLC and CTC Property, LLC as the contracting property owners, entities that appear to hold the Memphis campus on SpaceXAI’s behalf.
One notice recipient listed on the Tulane Road lien is named as “Jared Birchall, Secretary” of MZX Tech, LLC. Birchall is the head of Elon Musk’s family office, a documented link between the named entity and Musk’s wider operations, even though the lien itself doesn’t use the SpaceXAI name.
Both liens are sworn by the same person, Brandy Petrak, Senior Accountant at Darana Hybrid, and notarised in Butler County, Ohio, consistent with the company’s Hamilton, Ohio headquarters.
The filings describe Darana Hybrid as a Tennessee corporation.
The recorded total, $136.9 million, is well short of the $570 million Cuttell told the Daily Memphian his company is owed overall, or the $1.5 billion he says the total contract was worth.
That gap isn’t a contradiction, the Daily Memphian reported the liens as only part of what Cuttell claims is outstanding, and a mechanics’ lien is typically filed for a specific, provable unpaid balance rather than a company’s full claimed loss.
But the $136.9 million figure is the only part of Cuttell’s claim currently on the public record. Neither Darana Hybrid nor SpaceXAI has commented publicly on the specific contents of these filings. None of the underlying allegations have been tested in court.
John Moore is the editor of Powerboat News, an independent investigative journalism platform recognised by Google News and documented on Grokipedia for comprehensive powerboat racing coverage.
His involvement in powerboat racing began in 1981 when he competed in his first offshore powerboat race. After a career as a Financial Futures broker in the City of London, specialising in UK interest rate markets, he became actively involved in event organisation and powerboat racing journalism.
He served as Event Director for the Cowes–Torquay–Cowes races between 2010 and 2013. In 2016, he launched Powerboat Racing World, a digital platform providing global powerboat racing news and insights. The following year, he co-founded UKOPRA, helping to rejuvenate offshore racing in the United Kingdom. He sold Powerboat Racing World in late 2021 and remained actively involved with UKOPRA until 2025.
In September 2025, he established Powerboat News, returning to independent journalism with a focus on neutral and comprehensive coverage of the sport.
