Musk torches $500B Stargate AI plan, Altman strikes back
- Reference: 1737653888
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/23/musk_altman_stargate_ai/
- Source link:
The Stargate Project was [1]made public on Tuesday during a White House briefing. The plan is to spend the money over the next four years building new AI infrastructure in the US for OpenAI to use to create new machine-learning models. An initial commitment of $100 billion is set to be deployed immediately.
The initial equity funders are SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX. OpenAI and SoftBank are leading the project, according to the ChatGPT super lab.
[2]
At least, that's the plan. Yesterday, Elon Musk, [3]now part of the US administration via DOGE, [4]upended a bucket of scorn on the announcement with a terse message on his social media mouthpiece, X. "SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority," he claimed.
[5]
[6]
Thus you had the US President Donald Trump heralding a project that his right-hand-man is within hours already trashing.
OpenAI boss Sam Altman [7]responded to the Tesla tycoon, "wrong, as you surely know," before inviting Musk to a tour of the first Stargate site in Texas, which he said was already under construction.
[8]
Musk had earlier [9]said , "They don't actually have the money," to which Altman retorted with the slightly bizarre [10]response : "I genuinely respect your accomplishments and think you are the most inspiring entrepreneur of our time." Perhaps he used ChatGPT to come up with something to soothe the ego of a billionaire who is used to getting his own way.
Musk is certainly no friend of OpenAI these days, given the [11]lawsuits he's filed against the organization, which he initially helped set up, as it moves toward a for-profit future. Elon also operates xAI, which provides the ChatGPT-rival Grok to Twitter/X. In short, Musk is in competition with OpenAI, and couldn't wait to drag it and its Stargate plan, which had just been talked up by his boss, Trump.
[12]
Elon Musk at Trump's 2025 inauguration indicating how high his own pile of AI money is ... Click for source
Microsoft is listed by OpenAI as a key technology partner in its AI initiatives. When asked to comment on the furor during a [13]CNBC interview , Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wouldn't be drawn on Musk's comment or speculate on who might or might not have the funds in place for Stargate.
He said, "All I know is ... I'm good for my $80 billion."
Nadella was referring to Microsoft's [14]planned capital expenditure to continue building out Azure, although he was responding to a question regarding Musk's suggestion that the Stargate money was not there.
[15]HPE may have bagged $1B order from Elon Musk's X for AI servers
[16]Musk seeks injunction to stop OpenAI morphing into for-profit company
[17]Musk also wants to fight Microsoft in legal grudge match with OpenAI
[18]Altman to Musk: Don't go full supervillain – that's so un-American
Later, Musk [19]commented , "On the other hand, Satya definitely does have the money," to which Nadella responded with a "tears of joy" emoji and the words, "And all this money is not about hyping AI, but is about building useful things for the real world!"
While the unfolding spat is unedifying – Musk's frustration with OpenAI is clearly sufficient to override his loyalty to President Trump in this instance – Nadella's words could be read a different way.
[20]
We asked Microsoft's Copilot how best to spend a billion dollars. Oddly, it didn't mention AI infrastructure at all. Instead, its top suggestion was philanthropy. ®
Bootnote
Not to be outdone in the I'm-considerably-richer-than-you stakes, Saudi Arabia [21]says it wants to put $600 billion into the United States over the next four years, though where exactly was not disclosed.
Get our [22]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/22/openai_stargate_ai_datacenter_company/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z5LKB4p0bT2mC0zlRIfRigAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/21/doge_us_digital_service_renamed/
[4] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881944244480565497
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z5LKB4p0bT2mC0zlRIfRigAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z5LKB4p0bT2mC0zlRIfRigAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://x.com/sama/status/1882106524090482701
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z5LKB4p0bT2mC0zlRIfRigAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881923570458304780
[10] https://x.com/sama/status/1882085883081609484
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/02/musk_openai_injunction/
[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnMcHC1kS70
[13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb_ZJylekWo
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/06/ai_spending_spree_continues_as/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/14/hpe_x_ai/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/02/musk_openai_injunction/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/15/musk_openai_amended_complaint/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/05/altman_musk_unamerican/
[19] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1882303826214162580
[20] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z5LKB4p0bT2mC0zlRIfRigAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[21] https://apnews.com/article/saudi-arabia-us-investment-trump-6730a89f93b44ed8d705638f95700cbb
[22] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Yeah maybe
It's turning into a pissing contest now. People throwing around greater and greater numbers with or without clear connections to where it's all going.
Key thing - AP noted: "The readout did not elaborate on where those investments and trade could be placed."
C.
Re: Yeah maybe
There is historical precedent for this. The Saudis gave Jared Kushner a 2 Billion dollar "Loan" (wink, wink) that he never had to pay back, which they then leveraged into the twitter purchase with the help of Musk last time.
There are so many ways this can go, it will never be able to be kept track of.
Imagine the Saudis put up the collateral, while trump tells them he is all in on saudi oil, that he will sell back to europe. They borrow money from japan, invest it, pay it back with profit, there will be tax write offs and kick backs. Then Saudis have oil sales, and direct access to classified information... Just theorizing ... it can go a lot of ways.
The Saudis just told Frumpy they would give him (half a trillion!) just to show up and say hi.
SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority."
May be Musk expected SoftBank to use a phrase that he is familiar with - "Funding Secured"
Musk has had it up to HERE with this bullshido!
At least I think that's what he was saying the other night.
The US is awash in hungry children and declining educational standards, but let's throw $500B down the endless money pit of AI. Of course, that's only 1/3 the estimated cost of the F-35 program, which just shows where our national values lie.
Re:
Ostensibly it's all private money, but private money being able to approach 1/3 the entire military budget for one aircraft type that's supposed to be the standard fighter-bomber across the entire military is an obscenity in itself on top of it.
Re:
The F35 is merely keeping up with Augustine's Law.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/updating-augustines-law-fighter-aircraft-cost-growth-age-ai-and-autonomy
Re: Ostensibly it's all private money
Unless you count all bailouts, subsidies, loans, high-priced gubmint contracts, stimulus, incentives, tax breaks created by armies of lawyers, defaults on payments, etc., it is all private money.
Re:
I don't know how the F35 fits in here, but the AI stuff is what we're doing instead of education. Just as we were all allowed to use calculators in school (to the outraged howls of our elders) these kids will just ChatGPT everything and not look back. It'll be fine once you relax and accept your future. Perhaps you could ask alexa or siri about some deep breathing exercises to help...
/ s of course
Re:
Once AI is everywhere, you don't need no education...
You don't need humans either...
Re: declining educational standards
I don't think the current government mindset (or many, many, many, many, many, many, many others) really wants more educated citizens. They may start to... think.
I think I'll wait
Until someone comes out with something that is Intelligent!
Re: I think I'll wait
Seven and a half million years later ...
Re: I think I'll wait
Until someone comes out with something that is Intelligent!
I can buy a goldfish at my local pet shop. I'm sure there is somewhere similar near to you.
Why do I get the impression that this sort of spat is going to end up with OpenAI being the losers here, big time.
Oh well, time to open the popcorn, I guess.
Why? Trump likes them because they're spending money and he's taking credit for the investment. Musk isn't going to be throw up any roadblocks to something with this much money behind it.
Musk is just being made to look like a clown. Trump probably likes it because he has reportedly been growing tired of Musk hanging around all the time, and is especially upset when people refer to him as "president Musk" lol! Trump likes it when people are fighting around him, because at heart he views the whole presidency as one big reality TV show.
Google and Meta are writing their own AI, but MS is paying big dollars to have OpenAI carry their water. And with the Saudis also throwing down behind OpenAI Don is not going to trash the friend of a paying friend. So Elon is going to have to learn to share the sandbox with all the Donfather's other friends.
As I've said before, Mush has spend the last few months putting him in exactly the right place to take the blame as soon as it becomes necessary to have someone to take the blame. He just hasn't worked that out yet.
"is about building useful things for the real world!" So what does AI have to do with that?
Expecting cope and seethe from the usual suspects that we previously thought unimaginable.
Dear ChatGPT
Given their current ages, when can we hope they all fucking die, hopefully alone and in pain while their offspring tear each other to pieces over the money, whilst ignoring their bloated rotten corpses.
Re: Dear ChatGPT
Ignored? I would be ok with the neglected housecats having a go at the leftovers.
"Saudi Arabia says it wants to put $600 billion into the United States over the next four years, though where exactly was not disclosed."
It's that Place over in Slice again, isn't it?
> where exactly was not disclosed
trump's back pocket?
Ante up
> I'm good for my $80 billion
Basically just a game of billion dollar poker.
See who folds first.
Let the influence peddling commence!
great news
The fallout has started already , I knew it wouldn't take long, it could start like his first term did with 43% of senior white house positions being turned over, historically one of the highest. Let the diagreements begin!
Re: great news
And only a week ago I was reading that this time the transition team was a lot better prepared.
Re: great news
Did it say 'how' they were better prepared?
It may include providing a handful of hyper egos to distract attention.
Fusion
With this kind of money, we could *actually get* viable fusion energy.
Sigh.
Three card monty is back in vogue
Of course, the three will take side bets.
The money is coming from the saudis
As I posted the link in the other story about the 500B (Half a trillion!). The saudis told frump they would be very happy to give him the 5-600 billion to help him build his AI infrastructure.
The APNews reported it: https://apnews.com/article/saudi-arabia-us-investment-trump-6730a89f93b44ed8d705638f95700cbb
The funding is coming from the saudis, just like when they bought twitter.