Musk causes stir over AI project in US

Elon Musk stepped up a clash of billionaires after expressing skepticism over the finances of the backers of Stargate, an AI infrastructure plan announced on Tuesday by US President Donald Trump and three business executives.

Representatives of Oracle, OpenAI and Japan's SoftBank stood with Trump at the White House during the announcement. Their companies will make an initial investment of $100 billion in the project, with plans to eventually pump in $500 billion into Stargate, CNN reported.

But just before midnight on Tuesday, Musk wrote on his social media platform X, where he has nearly 214 million followers, "They don't actually have the money."

Early on Wednesday, he added: "SoftBank has well under $10 billion secured. I have that on good authority."

Billionaire OpenAI CEO Sam Altman replied on Wednesday to Musk's comments, writing on X, "Wrong, as you surely know. Want to come visit the first site already underway? 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 (America) first."

The two men have traded barbs in the past. Musk has sued Altman, called him a "swindler" and described him as "someone who is not trustworthy", while Altman has accused Musk of "clearly being a bully".

While Stargate plans to bring in more investors, the three main partners have restrictions on their cash, The Wall Street Journal reported.

OpenAI raised nearly $7 billion in October but is losing money. Oracle has about $11 billion in cash and marketable securities but more in debt, while SoftBank has about $30 billion of cash handy, the Journal reported.

In December, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son committed to invest at least $100 billion in US projects over the next four years at an event at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's resort in Florida.

Son, Altman and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison attended the Stargate news conference with Trump on Tuesday.

What made the comments noteworthy by Musk, the Tesla CEO, is that the president has picked him to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it is called, and he has been a frequent visitor at Mar-a-Lago.

Musk co-founded OpenAI and gave the company its name, but left its board in 2018. He has said it was intended to be open-source software. "Altman assured Musk that the nonprofit structure guaranteed neutrality and a focus on safety and openness for the benefit of humanity, not shareholder value," a complaint filed in August in the US District Court in Northern California said. "But as it turns out, this was all hot-air philanthropy — the hook for Altman's long con."

Musk filed a similar lawsuit against OpenAI in March 2024, claiming that it had not followed its founding agreement by emphasizing "profit over the technology's potential benefit to humanity", the Journal reported. But Musk withdrew the complaint in June.

Musk also claimed that ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI, has abandoned its original nonprofit mission by keeping some of its most advanced AI technology for private customers, CNN reported.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told Fox News that "the American people should take President Trump and those CEOs' words for it".

Musk, the world's richest man, whose companies also include SpaceX, which owns Starlink, a satellite internet constellation, last year started his own AI company, xAI, which is building a data center in Memphis, Tennessee.

Musk says xAI faces unfair competition from OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft, which has supplied the massive computing resources needed to build AI systems such as ChatGPT.

Of Musk's comments about Stargate's financing, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said on CNBC on Wednesday, "All I know is, I'm good for my $80 billion."

Rising shares

Shares of Oracle and Microsoft rose 6.8 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively, in Nasdaq stock market trading on Wednesday.

"It will ensure the future of technology. What we want to do, we want to keep it in this country — China's a competitor, and others are competitors," Trump said. He also said on Tuesday that Stargate would create 100,000 jobs in the US.

Liu Liang, a researcher at the Institute of Applied Economics of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said: "The US and Chinese economies are highly complementary, including in artificial intelligence, where the US leads in fundamental research, and China excels in applications."

"The two economies are deeply interconnected despite US decoupling efforts," Liu told China Daily.

In terms of technological innovation, China and the United States have large room for AI cooperation and the two countries can work on areas such as building ethical frameworks and establishing industry standards, he said.

Agencies contributed to this story.