Key Takeaways
- The Stargate infrastructure project aims to build data centers for OpenAI across the United States.
- Elon Musk and Sam Altman are at odds over the Stargate project, with Musk questioning SoftBank’s financial responsibility.
- The Stargate project is expected to commit $100 billion to data centers and invest $500 billion over four years.
Elon Musk, the owner of xAI, and Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, are engaged in a heated debate on X about Stargate, a massive infrastructure project aimed at building data centers for OpenAI across the United States.
OpenAI said on Tuesday that it would team up with SoftBank and Oracle to build multiple data centers for artificial intelligence (AI) in the United States. The companies expect to commit 100 billion U.S. dollars to Stargate initially and invest 500 billion dollars into the venture over the next four years.
“SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility,” the joint statement noted.
“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote in a series of posts on X on Tuesday. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
Altman fired back at Musk in an X post Wednesday. “Wrong, as you surely know,” Altman said, responding to Musk’s allegation that SoftBank was short of capital.
Altman added that Stargate is great for the country. “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.”
xAI, like OpenAI, is hungry for infrastructure to develop its AI systems. Musk’s company is estimated to have spent 12 billion dollars on its single data center in Memphis and could spend billions more upgrading the facility, according to a report by TechCrunch.
