Elon Musk is casting doubt on President Trump’s first major tech investment announcement, openly questioning the administration he now serves.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump announced a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to create at least $100 billion in computing infrastructure to power artificial intelligence, some of which is already underway.
But in two late-night messages on X, Mr Musk said the venture, called Stargate, did not have the funding to reach promised levels of investment.
“They have no money,” Musk wrote in response to an OpenAI post on the announcement. “SoftBank has under $10 billion secured. I have that on good authority.”
The firing of Mr. Musk, who is one of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers and will lead an agency designed to cut the nation’s budget, is one of his first public breaks with the administration. It is also an unusual move for any senior policy official to question an initiative trumpeted by the president.
Mr. Trump claimed the AI announcement as an early trophy, taking credit for companies’ decision to spend up to $500 billion building data centers, which are large buildings full of servers that provide computing power. Mr Trump promised to clear regulatory hurdles to AI development and make the United States a global leader in the technology, beating China.
“The American people should take President Trump and those CEOs at their word,” Caroline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told Fox News on Wednesday. “These investments are coming to our great country and American jobs are coming with them.”
Stargate already has $100 billion on hand, two people familiar with the venture said. SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and MGX, an investment group in the United Arab Emirates that focuses on AI, provided the funding.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. The two companies have denied the suit’s allegations.)
Mr Musk has been battling with OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman. Mr. Musk, who helped found the company, has sued OpenAI and Mr. Altman for antitrust violations.
Mr. Musk formed a rival called xAI in 2023, long after a boom in the technology that included the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The startup recently raised $6 billion in funding.
Mr. Altman took to X on Wednesday morning to refute Mr. Musk’s claims.
“Wrong, as you probably know,” Mr. Altman wrote. “Want to come visit the first page already in development?”
Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump have grown closer in recent months after the tech mogul came out in support of the president’s campaign, eventually donating more than $250 million to support his run. Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, became a vocal supporter, using his megaphone at his social media company X to thwart Mr. Trump.
Mr. Musk is also the chief executive of Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.
“Elon Musk is a walking conflict of interest,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. “People throughout history have tried to influence government, but what makes him so unique is his close friendship with Donald Trump, along with the breadth of his businesses that are affected by government contracts, taxes and other public policies.” .
Mr. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During the presidential transition, Mr. Musk settled into a villa at Mar-a-Lago with easy access to scheduling meetings. He has been omnipresent at Mr. Trump’s side, driving Mr. Trump to a SpaceX rocket launch, attending Mr. Trump’s New Year’s party and sitting with other tech moguls at the inauguration on Monday.
On Wednesday, Mr. Musk reposted a comment from a tech investor that repeated claims that the Stargate initiative was underfunded. The post by Gavin Baker, managing partner and chief investment officer at Atreides Management, said “Stargate is a great name, but $500 billion is a ridiculous number and no one should take it seriously,” unless Softbank was willing to sell certain assets. .