Tech billionaire Elon Musk took a jab at the multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence deal that President Trump has made with tech companies.
“They don’t actually have the money,” Mr. Musk, a top Trump ally, posted late Tuesday on X.
“SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority,” he posted early Wednesday.
Mr. Trump on Tuesday announced a deal with OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and Oracle’s Larry Ellison. The tech giants are investing up to $500 billion into data centers in the United States as part of a new project called Stargate, with a $100 billion initial investment.
“We want it to be in this country and we’re making it available,” Mr. Trump said.
He said the project is made up of “big money and high-quality people.”
The first center will be in Texas and construction is already underway, Mr. Ellison said. He suggested the project would play a role in digital health records and could make it easier to diagnose and treat disease, including cancer.
“This is the promise of AI and the promise of the future,” Mr. Ellison said.
Mr. Altman called it “the most important project of this era.”
Mr. Musk and Mr. Altman have a rocky relationship over OpenAI, the company they co-founded in 2015. Mr. Musk stepped down from the board of directors in 2018 over differing opinions.
Mr. Altman has called Mr. Musk a “bully” for his repeated criticisms and lawsuits against OpenAI.
“He’s also clearly a bully, and he’s also someone who clearly likes to get in fights,” Mr. Altman said last month, adding that he thinks it’s because OpenAI is “doing really well. Elon cares about doing really well.”
Mr. Trump has secured these types of deals before. Earlier this month, he announced that Damac Properties, a United Arab Emirates real estate firm, was investing $20 billion to build new data centers in the U.S.
In December, he announced a $100 billion investment by SoftBank over the next four years, which hte company said will create 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence and infrastructure.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.