Elon Musk openly questioned whether companies that joined Trump’s announcement promising hundreds of billions of dollars in A.I. infrastructure could follow through on their promises, exposing an early internal rift within the White House. “They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on X. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
Trump was joined by SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison at the White House to announce the venture, dubbed Stargate, which they said would deploy $100 billion immediately with the goal of eventually spending $500 billion for the construction of data centers and physical campuses.
Altman took to X to dispute Musk’s characterisation on Wednesday, calling it wrong and suggesting Musk was upset because the pact could rival the billionaire’s own AI efforts.
Altman also invited Musk to visit the first site in Texas that is under construction. “(T)his is great for the country. i realize 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 (America) first,” Altman wrote, using a US flag emoji to represent America.
According to the Information, Altman has told colleagues SoftBank and OpenAI plan to commit $19 billion each to Stargate for a corresponding 40% stake. Oracle and Abu Dhabi-backed MGX would contribute about $7 billion apiece, the outlet cited the OpenAI chief as saying.
