Elon Musk criticized on Wednesday January 22 the project of massive private investments in artificial intelligence (AI) presented the day before by Donald Trump, affirming that the partners of this new joint venture “[n’avaient] not the money” to finance it, which OpenAI boss Sam Altman contested.
During a major rally at the White House, the American president unveiled a joint company called “Stargate”, which plans to commit “at least $500 billion” to AI infrastructure in the United States. Stargate brings together cloud specialist Oracle, Japanese investment giant SoftBank, and generative AI start-up OpenAI (ChatGPT). Also among the project’s financiers is the MGX investment fund, backed by the United Arab Emirates. The flamboyant boss of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son, specified that the joint venture would “start immediately deploying 100 billion dollars”, with the objective of reaching a total of 500 over four years.
Pass of arms on X
“They don’t have the money” to finance this project, Elon Musk proclaimed on his X account on Wednesday. “SoftBank is only insured with $10 billion,” he said, adding: “I I have it from a good source.” The Tesla boss spent $277 million out of his own pocket to finance Donald Trump’s campaign and was entrusted an extra-governmental mission to cut public spending.
“False, as you probably know,” OpenAI boss Sam Altman quickly retorted on X, proposing to Elon Musk to “come and visit the first site under construction”. “I realize that what is good for the country is not always good for your companies, but I hope that in your new role, you will put the United States first,” continued Sam Altman. Elon Musk, who is one of the co-founders of OpenAI, regularly attacks Sam Altman, whom he accuses in particular of having subverted the initial mission of the start-up, focused on reasoned development of AI.
For its part, SoftBank, questioned Thursday by AFP, refused to comment, referring to its press release the day before. SoftBank’s stock continued to soar on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, climbing 6% at midday Thursday after gaining some 10% on Wednesday.
“These investments are coming to our great country”
“The American people should take President Trump and these CEOs at their word: these investments are coming to our great country and American jobs are coming with them,” Donald Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News.
According to the Wall Street JournalSoftBank has approximately $30 billion in available cash, and Oracle has approximately $11 billion in cash and securities. Oracle’s spending on its data center network was only a few billion in its last fiscal year. For its part, according to a report from Bloomberg, the information site The Information said Thursday that SoftBank and OpenAI each planned to invest $19 billion in Stargate, and would then each control 40% of the capital. Oracle and MGX would each contribute about $7 billion, with the rest coming from sponsors and debt financing.
Stargate mainly focuses on the construction of data hosting and processing centers, the famous “data centers”. The development of the cloud (remote computing) and AI, especially generative, requires immense data storage capacities, which has boosted the need for cutting-edge servers.
Elon Musk himself is involved in the AI race and the companies he controls, notably Tesla, have invested massively in this area. His generative AI start-up, xAI, launched in 2023, wants to build a “giant computing factory” on a former industrial site in Memphis (Tennessee).