Musk: 500 billion is a scam, Sam is a liar

Source: AI Fan

OpenAI's "Stargate" infrastructure project, announced by President Trump at the White House on Tuesday, triggered a rare public confrontation between tech giants. Although Trump praised the $500 billion project, which aims to expand AI data centers, as an early result of his plan to stimulate U.S. investment through tax cuts and deregulation, its financing ability was immediately strongly questioned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Musk posted a series of criticisms on the social platform X a few hours after the White House press conference: "They don't have the money at all. According to my reliable information, SoftBank actually received less than $10 billion." In response to a post criticizing Altman, he was more blunt: "Sam is a liar."

As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk has a complicated relationship with OpenAI. He is not only a co-founder of the company, but he left the board of directors in 2018 due to differences in ideas with current CEO Sam Altman, and is currently involved in a legal dispute with OpenAI through his AI company xAI. It is estimated that Musk's xAI has invested $12 billion in a data center in Memphis alone, and billions of dollars may be needed to upgrade facilities in the future.

Ultraman hit back strongly on the X platform on Wednesday: "You know very well that what you said is wrong. I understand that what is good for the country may not always be best for your company, but since you are now in an important position, I hope you can put (the interests of the United States) first." It is worth noting that Altman also expressed his respect for Musk: "I sincerely admire your achievements. You are the most inspiring entrepreneur of our time. Although I don't think he is friendly or fair to us, I have to say that he is respectable and he drives all of us to become more ambitious."

According to people familiar with the matter, although Stargate's founding investors - SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and Abu Dhabi National Artificial Intelligence Fund MGX - will provide part of the funds, most of the first $100 billion is expected to come from new investors that have not yet been determined. The project has started construction of a data center in Abilene, Texas, and plans to invest a total of $500 billion in the next four years. Another person familiar with the matter stressed: "We are ready to invest $100 billion immediately."

The controversy has also attracted widespread attention in the technology industry. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella cautiously stated in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday: "I can only guarantee the $80 billion capital expenditure we plan to invest this year." Microsoft later issued a statement saying that it supports the Stargate project and emphasized that this statement is not directed at any event or individual.

Rival Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei questioned the project at the World Economic Forum in Davos: "Neither the specific investment amount nor the implemented funding commitments are clear enough, and the role of the government in the project is not clear." However, he also expressed support for the Trump administration's emphasis on building AI infrastructure energy production capacity in the United States, and believed that Trump's cancellation of the Biden administration's AI executive order would have limited impact.

At the White House press conference on Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Altman, SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison attended together. Trump said Stargate will create 100,000 jobs, an important victory for the United States against China, and help ensure that the "technological future" stays in the United States. He promised to use an "emergency declaration" to speed up the approval process for the project to obtain the large amount of electricity it needs.

Arm, Microsoft, Nvidia and Oracle were identified as the first technical partners of the project. The news pushed the stock prices of related listed companies up sharply. SoftBank's shares rose more than 10% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Wednesday, Oracle rose 6.8%, Arm, Nvidia and Microsoft rose 15.9%, 4.4% and 4.1% respectively. OpenAI, the operator of the project, is not currently listed.

"The scale of this investment is obviously huge. I think it reflects the progress that the technology can make, at least the progress that we all believe in, which is also huge." SoftBank and OpenAI declined to comment further, and MGX and Oracle have not yet responded to requests for comment.