Tech CEOs protested Trump’s Stargate AI project
L-R: Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.
Reuters
After President Donald Trump unveiled his $500 billion private AI investment project, a clash of tech giants has erupted.
Earlier this week, Trump announced a joint venture with OpenAI. Oracle And Soft Bank To invest billions of dollars in domestic computing capacity to boost AI development in the United States.
Dubbed Stargate, the project was announced at the White House by Trump, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Son becomes the chairman of Stargate, a semiconductor company Arm, Microsoft, NiveaOracle and OpenAI serve as key initial technology partners.
The executives pledged to invest an initial $100 billion and up to $500 billion over the next four years.
The first blow was thrown by Elon Musk – a close ally of Trump and himself a key figure in AI at the start-up xAI – in a post on the X social media platform, companies involved in the project “You really don’t have money.“To support the investment.
“SoftBank is safe under $10B. I have that on good authority,” Musk added in a follow-up post. Altman, Responding to Musk’s lawsuitHe said. As you well know, it is wrong.
“Would you like to visit the first site about to launch?” Altman added. “This is good for the country. I understand that what’s best for the country isn’t always what’s best for your companies, but I hope you put (America) first in your new role.”
Musk leads the Office of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the White House’s flagship government efficiency effort. In the year He was Trump’s biggest financial backer in the 2024 election.
A Microsoft-OpenAI rift has emerged.
On Wednesday, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff hinted that the investment plan could create friction between OpenAI and Microsoft, close partners.
OpenAI said Tuesday. It ended its agreement with Microsoft to serve as its sole cloud provider. The relationship change was announced as part of the announcement of the Stargate project.
“Because Microsoft is building its own AI, I think it’s important that OpenAI gets to other platforms quickly,” Benioff told CNBC. “I don’t think Microsoft will use OpenAI in the future, they will have their own boundary models.”
The head of sales force added: “They have clearly said that it is too expensive and too difficult for them and they want to have their own. “That’s why they hired Mustafa Suleiman[as Microsoft’s AI CEO]— and Mustafa Suleiman and Sam Altman are not close friends.”
Microsoft appointed Sulaiman co-founder last year Google AI lab DeepMind, to lead its new AI division.
Microsoft is the largest investor in OpenAI, plowing billions of dollars into the company. As part of a business arrangement between the two organizations, OpenAI will provide models on the Azure cloud platform.
‘I’m good at $80 billion’
CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella addressed concerns about the tech giant’s relationship with OpenAI Wednesday, saying the two continue to share a “crucial partnership.”
“Sam (Altman) wants to continue with the rules to build more computation so he can train more models,” Nadella told CNBC. “We have the right of first refusal. It comes to us first. If we meet these needs, then we clear it. If not, it can go to these other providers.”
Asked about Musk’s claim that OpenAI and other companies involved in Stargate don’t have the cash to meet the initial $100 billion commitment, Nadella said, “All I know is, I’m good for $80 billion.”
As early as 2025, Microsoft announced plans to spend $80 billion on building data centers to boost its AI efforts.
“I’m going to spend $80 billion to build Azure,” Nadella told CNBC. “Customers can count on Microsoft.”
— CNBC’s Eamon Javers and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report