Mere hours after the OpenAI announced the ambitious Stargate Project, which would see up to $500 billion in private AI infrastructure construction over the next four years, Tesla CEO and newly-minted presidential advisor Elon Musk alleged on social media that the project’s backers, “don’t actually have the money.”
Announcing The Stargate Project
The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately. This infrastructure will secure…
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 21, 2025
The Stargate Project would be a new company financially backed by Softbank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX, with Arm, Nvidia, and long-time OpenAI investor, Microsoft, offering technical guidance. Its purpose is to build out the power-and-resource-hungry data centers that make today’s large language models possible on OpenAI’s behalf.
“This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world,” the company’s announcement post reads. “This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.”
The project’s backers have committed to “deploy” the first $100 billion immediately to begin building In fact, the consortium has already broken ground in Texas for its first construction project.
“The scale of this investment, obviously, is huge. And what I think that says about the likely progress of the technology, at least what all of us believe, is correspondingly huge,” OpenAI Sam Altman told Fox News on Wednesday.
Donald Trump has publicly supported the venture, saying Tuesday, “What we want to do is we want to keep it in this country… China is a competitor, others are competitors. We want to be in this country, and we’re making it available.”
In what could have been an easy and early optics win for the new presidential administration, Elon Musk has interposed himself. In an X post late Wednesday, Musk insinuated that the entire endeavor was a sham. “They don’t actually have the money,” he wrote. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
OpenAI Sam Altman initially showed his belly by writing in response, “I genuinely respect your accomplishments and think you are the most inspiring entrepreneur of our time,” before his subsequent replies grew sharper. “I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies,” he added, “but in your new role i [sic] hope you’ll mostly put [America] first.”
wrong, as you surely know.
want to come visit the first site already under way?
this 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 🇺🇸 first.
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 22, 2025
This isn’t the first time that Musk and Altman have clashed publicly. The two are engaged in a years-long running legal battle over OpenAI’s governance, Altman’s continued leadership of the company, and more recently, the startup’s decision to transition to a for-profit business model. Musk was an early investor in the company but left in 2018 after a brief leadership struggle. He subsequently founded xAI, makers of the Grok chatbot/unhinged image generator, shortly after signing an open letter arguing that for a six-month “pause” in AI development, “to let society adapt.” Musk spent an estimated $10 billion on AI ventures in 2024.