WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday shrugged off an ugly back-and-forth between tech CEOs Elon Musk and Sam Altman that pitted one of Trump’s most visible lieutenants against a key participant in a massive $500 billion AI project Trump announced Tuesday.
Musk had undercut Trump’s Tuesday Oval Office AI announcement, casting doubt on his X social media platform that any of the participating companies had the money to fund it. But Trump Thursday told reporters at the White House that Musk’s commentary was just a case of bad blood, because he “hates one of the people in the deal” – not an indictment of the viability of the deal he had announced.
“No, he hates one of the people,” Trump said, in an apparent reference to Altman. “I’ve spoken to Elon, but—spoken to all of them, actually. 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.”
Shortly after Trump announced the new massive AI infrastructure investment between Altman’s OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, Musk wrote on his social media platform X, “They don’t actually have the money. SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
Pressed on Musk’s comments Thursday, Trump told reporters, “I don’t know if they do, but you know, they’re putting up the money– the government’s not putting up anything, they’re putting up money. They’re very rich people, so I hope they do.”
Trump had announced the investment will create a new company, called Stargate, to grow artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. The leaders of SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle stood alongside Trump during the announcement. Their respective companies will invest $100 billion in total for the project to start, with plans to pour up to $500 billion into Stargate in the coming years.
Following the post, Altman and Musk have traded barbs on the platform, with Musk, who’s in an ongoing lawsuit with OpenAI, sharing former posts critical of Trump from Altman to his own X page.
Asked in a follow-up exchange if he was frustrated with Musk’s very public criticism of the AI announcement he helped broker, Trump demurred Thursday.
Musk’s barbs represented a notable takedown of a major White House project from someone that is in Trump’s innermost circle. As a sign of how involved Musk is in the first days of the administration, Musk said he was in the Oval Office on Tuesday as Trump signed a pardon for Ross William Ulbricht, founder of the dark web marketplace SilkRoad. Musk had also dispatched a top staffer from his SpaceX and X companies to help ensure the release of convicted January 6 rioters after Trump signed a blanket pardon.
But perhaps it should not be a surprise that Musk is going after an OpenAI initiative. Musk is in an ongoing lawsuit with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, who was at the White House for the announcement. Musk, who has said he “doesn’t trust” Altman, claims in the lawsuit the ChatGPT has abandoned its original nonprofit mission by reserving some of its most advanced AI technology for private customers.
The companies involved in Stargate have not publicly disclosed how they will contribute the funds, but they don’t necessarily need the money in the bank to support it — they could raise debt or sign on other equity investors.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday rebuffed Musk’s comments, saying in a Fox News interview, “the American people should take President Trump and those CEOs’ words for it.” — CNN
