US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (Jan 21) introduced a plan to invest $500 billion in creating new Artificial Intelligence (AI) data centres across the United States. In this proposal, big names in the tech industry, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, were also together.

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All three executives credit Trump for the project, and Altman said to him that it would not be possible without "Mr President". The project was started under the Biden administration. 

Trump replied to the executives by praising the "high-quality people" working on the project. The project is what the second Trump administration wishes to accomplish, but some of the members of the administration seemed not so happy with the announcement. 

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Soon after the announcement of the project, Trump's ally and Altman's former ally, Elon Musk, had a public outburst. The billionaire, leading the newly formed DOGE department under Trump, spent days on social media claiming that neither OpenAI nor SoftBank has sufficient funds to invest. He was also seen firing jabs at Altman, who was once an ally of the X owner and now an enemy. 

In a post announcing the project by the OpenAI on Musk-owned X, the billionaire replied, "They don’t have the money." He further said, “SoftBank has well under $10bn secured. I have that on good authority.”

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Musk even called the announcement fake and termed Altman a "grifter". This was the latest in the rivalry between Musk and Altman, who once founded Open AI together, and just after that, Musk left the company. 

But Musk's argument was in total contradiction to Trump's praise for the project. And no one was ready for it after Musk's massive support for the Republican in the 2024 presidential election. 

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Trump, in response to the criticism by Musk, said on Thursday (Jan 23), "The people in the deal are very, very smart people – but Elon, one of the people he happens to hate. But I have certain hatreds of people too." 

Moreover, as per a report by Politico, Trump's staff are "furious" with Elon Musk. “The problem is, the president doesn’t have any leverage over him, and Elon gives zero f***s," says one of the staff members to the news agency. 

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Former Trump aide and Maga guru, Steve Bannon, called Musk “out of control." He added that Musk "should not reverse" what Trump has already promised. 

(With inputs from agencies)