Tech CEOs clash over Trump’s Stargate AI project

Some of the biggest names in tech clashed after the President Donald Trump It presented a $500 billion private AI investment project.

Trump announced earlier this week joint venture with OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank Investing billions of dollars in increasing domestic computing capacity to boost the development of artificial intelligence in the United States.

The project called “Star Gate” was presented The White House By Trump, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. He will become the chairman of his last semiconductor company, Stargate Goal, Microsoft, NvidiaOracle and OpenAI will serve as key initial technology partners.

Executives have committed to investing an initial $100 billion and up to $500 billion over the next four years.

He struck the first blow Elon Musk — Close ally of Trump and himself a major figure in artificial intelligence with his startup xAI he claimed In a post on social media platform X, the companies involved in the project “you actually have no moneyto finance the investment.

“SoftBank has more than $10 billion in collateral. I have good authority,” Musk added in his next post. Altman, He responded to Musk’s claimhe said. “Wrong, as you know.”

“Would you like to visit the first site available?” Altman added. “It’s great for the country. I understand that what’s good for the country isn’t always optimal for your companies, but in your new role, I hope you’ll basically put (the U.S.) first.”

Musk heads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the White House’s major government efficiency effort. He was Trump’s biggest financial backer in the 2024 election.

OpenAI said on Tuesday that it has Terminated agreement with Microsoft to serve as its exclusive cloud provider. The change in attitude was announced as part of the Stargate Project announcement.

“I think it’s very important that OpenAI gets to other platforms quickly because Microsoft is building its AI,” Benioff told CNBC. “I don’t think Microsoft will use OpenAI in the future, they will have their own frontier models.”

“They’ve been very clear that it’s too expensive and too difficult for them and they want to own it,” the Salesforce executive added. “That’s why they hired Mustafa Suleiman (as Microsoft AI CEO) — and Mustafa Suleiman and Sam Altman aren’t the best of friends.”

Microsoft appointed its co-founder Suleiman last year Google’s AI laboratory DeepMind, for heads the new AI division.

Microsoft is the single largest investor with billions of dollars invested in OpenAI. It also offers OpenAI models on the Azure cloud platform as part of a commercial agreement between the two firms.

CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella addressed concerns about the tech giant’s relationship with OpenAI Wednesday, saying the two continue to share a “critical partnership.”

“Sam (Altman) wants to continue to scale the laws to create more computing to train more models,” Nadella told CNBC. “We have the right of first refusal. He goes to us first. If we meet those needs, we clear him. If not, he can go to these other providers.”

Asked about Musk’s claim that OpenAI and the other companies involved in Stargate don’t have the funds to meet the initial $100 billion total initial commitment, Nadella said, “Look, all I know is that I’m good with my $80 billion.”

Microsoft has announced plans to spend $80 billion on data center construction this year to boost its AI efforts by early 2025.

“I’m going to spend $80 billion building Azure,” Nadella told CNBC. “Customers can count on Microsoft.”

— CNBC’s Eamon Javers and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report