WASHINGTON — Shortly after President Donald Trump announced a new $500 billion artificial intelligence project funded in part by OpenAI and SoftBank, Elon Musk took to his social media platform, X, to say neither company has enough money to make it happen.
Trump announced the Stargate project during an event at the White House on Tuesday, along with project investors OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son and Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison. OpenAI followed the event with an announcement on X, saying it will invest “over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately.”
Musk responded just a few hours later to say OpenAI doesn’t “actually have the money" and “Softbank has well under $10B secured.”
OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle each plan to invest $100 billion in the project over the next four years.
In December, then-President-elect Trump announced that SoftBank would invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years, but he did not say what the projects would be. SoftBank is a Japanese technology group that makes investments in a variety of companies, including search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, tech company Nvidia and OpenAI.
In addition to running the electric vehicle company Tesla, the rocket firm SpaceX and the social media platform X, Musk also owns a majority share in an artificial intelligence startup, xAI, which he founded in 2023. As of December, Musk had raised $12 billion for the company. According to its website, xAI’s mission is to advance scientific discovery and gain a deeper understanding of the universe.
OpenAI is valued at $157 billion. It has received investments from Microsoft, Nvidia, Softbank, Citi and Fidelity Investments.
After spending more than $200 million on helping Trump get elected, Musk has emerged as one of his closest advisers.
Musk was also an early investor in OpenAI when it was founded in 2015 and co-chaired its board alongside Altman. Musk resigned from the board in early 2018 in a move that OpenAI said — at the time — would prevent conflicts of interest as he was recruiting AI talent to build self-driving technology at Tesla.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to Musk’s skepticism, saying he was “wrong” about the company’s finances and inviting him for a site visit. Oracle’s Ellison said Tuesday that the first data centers for the project are already under construction in Texas and will expand.
“This is great for the country,” Altman wrote on X, responding to Musk. “I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role I hope you’ll mostly put [America] first.”
Trump appointed Musk to lead his Department of Government Efficiency in November. On Monday, Trump signed an executive order establishing the DOGE with the purpose of “modernizing federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.