President Donald Trump unveiled the massive AI project at the White House on his first full day in office. Stargate had been on the drawing board for at least a year and requires tech giants OpenAI, Oracle, Softbank and Microsoft to invest $500 billion in US artificial intelligence infrastructure.
However, the plans do not effectively involve Musk’s flavour of AI, and he is personally at odds with OpenAI. Musk is also in a position of power over Trump, having given him shedloads of money for his election campaign and being in charge of cutting government spending.
Musk claimed, without any evidence, that tech giants OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank don’t have enough money to fulfil their high-profile pledge.
“They don’t have the money,” Musk wrote in response to an OpenAI post on his social platform X.
“SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority,” Musk added in a subsequent post.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman replied directly to Musk that his claim about Softbank’s liquidity was “wrong, as you surely know.”
“I realise what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role, I hope you’ll mostly put [American flag emoji] first,” he added.
Musk’s post about Softbank was “far off base,” according to a person familiar with the AI project, who was granted anonymity to discuss the situation.
“There’s no doubt” that Musk’s testy relationship with Altman was the catalyst for his posts about Stargate, the person added.
Musk’s comments undermined Trump’s announcement that Stargate “will invest $500 billion at least” and create “over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately.”
“I think it’s going to be something that’s very special. It’ll lead to something that could be the biggest of all,” Trump had said.
Ellison said at that event that 10 data centres, every 500,000 square feet, were already under construction in Abilene, Texas and that 10 more are in the works.
CNBC has also learned that Trump spoke by phone with Altman last week. Their “lengthy” conversation focused on AI's potential to improve people’s lives and the importance of building its infrastructure in the United States, not in China.
OpenAI listed Microsoft as one of its key initial technology partners in Stargate. The company said earlier in January that it plans to invest $80 billion in AI-capable data centres in the next fiscal year.
Asked on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” about Stargate, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, “I’m not particularly in the details on what they’re investing.”
When asked about Musk’s posts questioning Stargate’s funding, Nadella replied, “Look, all I know is, I’m good for my $80 billion.”
