Donald Trump's close ally Elon Musk has cast doubt on a massive $500 billion Artificial Inteilligence infrastructure project announced by the US president.
Musk, who had invested $270 million in the Trump campaign, raised eyebrows with his rare public criticism of the newly inaugurated administration as he claimed that the funding for the ambitious venture actually 'wasn't there'.
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What is Trump's Stargate project?
On Tuesday (Jan 21), during his first full day in the White House, Trump unveiled Stargate, a collaboration between Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT. The US president hailed Stargate as a transformative initiative to strengthen AI infrastructure in the US and declared, "will invest $500 billion, at least, in AI infrastructure in the United States."
Musk's critique
However, Elon Musk, posting on his platform X, challenged the financial foundation of Trump's AI project and said investors "don't actually have the money."
"SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority," he stated, suggesting the investment claims might be inflated.
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Musk's comments appeared aimed at OpenAI, a company he co-founded but left in 2018 after tensions with current CEO Sam Altman. Relations between Musk and OpenAI have since soured, with Musk repeatedly criticising the company's operations and filing lawsuits against it.
Altman quickly fired back on X, refuting Musk's claims: "Wrong, as you surely know. Want to come visit the first site already underway?"
"This is great for the country. I realise 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 (country) first," Altman wrote.
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So, do they have the funding?
While SoftBank, Oracle, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund are among the project's primary backers, financial experts have raised questions about their collective ability to meet the $500 billion target. SoftBank, as per AFP news agency, reportedly holds around $30 billion in cash, while Oracle’s cash and securities reserves stand at approximately $11 billion.
Meanwhile, Trump's spokesperson Karoline Leavitt defended the project, talking to Fox News said: "The American people should take President Trump and those CEOs words for it. These investments are coming to our great country, and American jobs are coming along with them".
According to the companies involved, Stargate will initially focus on a $100 billion investment, with plans to expand to $500 billion over four years.
Construction of a major datacentre in Texas is already underway, they said.
Technology giants like Nvidia, Microsoft and SoftBank’s Arm division have joined as technology partners.
(With inputs from agencies)