Two of the biggest names in tech have engaged in a social media battle over what may be the year’s biggest artificial intelligence (AI) project.
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Elon Musk has never avoided getting into arguments with other high-profile figures. He’s publicly insulted politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and lashed out at X users with opinions he doesn’t share.
But recently, he blatantly challenged a major news announcement made not just by a fellow tech CEO but by someone with whom he used to work closely: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
On January 21, 2025, OpenAI posted to X that it had launched a new project with the backing of President Donald Trump. However, Musk, despite his position in Trump’s cabinet, felt compelled to challenge OpenAI’s news, making claims that Altman has since disputed.
Just after he spoke at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Elon Musk has challenged an AI project that Trump has publicly supported. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Elon Musk and Sam Altman face off on X
Anyone who cares about AI has likely been closely following the development of Stargate, a $500 billion AI infrastructure venture to build data centers for OpenAI across the U.S. President Trump has made it clear that he supports it, describing Stargate as “tremendous” and “monumental.”
Related: Elon Musk throws shade at $500 billion Stargate venture
Musk doesn’t seem to share this sentiment, however. Just hours after Trump made these statements, the CEO of Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX responded to OpenAI’s post on X announcing the launch of The Stargate Project and highlighting its potential to help the nation continue to conquer the AI arms race.
“This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies,” stated the post. Musk responded by claiming that OpenAI and its partners “don’t actually have the money” to finance Stargate.
As OpenAI noted in the post, both Oracle (ORCL) and SoftBank (SFTBY) are equity founders in Stargate while technology partners include Nvidia (NVDA) , Microsoft (MSFT) and chipmaker Arm Holdings (ARM) . Musk later added that he has it on good authority that SoftBank has “well under $10B secured.”
wrong, as you surely know.
want to come visit the first site already under way?
this 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 🇺🇸 first.
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 22, 2025
Altman responded to Musk’s posts by calling him out for being incorrect and inviting Musk to visit the first Stargate site, which he claims is already under construction. “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,” he added.
While Altman didn’t explicitly state this, the last sentence implies that he believes Musk feels threatened by OpenAI’s progress. Musk indeed has xAI, an AI venture of his own that competes with OpenAI.
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If Stargate can successfully carry out its mission of building data centers, it will provide substantial benefits for OpenAI, likely at the expense of Musk’s company. However, that may not be the whole story regarding Musk’s odd comments on the Stargate project.
Is Musk vs. Altman the new Gates vs. Jobs?
When the modern tech sector began to unfold amid the personal computing boom of the 1980s, a rivalry between Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs came to define the era.
Tensions between them escalated in 1983 when Microsoft’s Windows operating system strongly resembled the Apple Mac OS.
Fast-forward to today, and it seems that the modern AI boom may be defined by a rivalry between Musk and Altman, two competitors who were once teammates. In 2015, they co-founded OpenAI together to create a non-profit organization that could develop AI “in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole.”
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Musk left OpenAI in 2018, citing potential conflicts of interest with Tesla as the reason.
According to a report from Semafor, though, Musk proposed running OpenAI himself in 2018. Altman and other board members rejected this proposal, causing Musk to leave the organization entirely.
“The conflict would also create a public rift between the two most important players in technology today, Musk and Altman,” notes the outlet, adding that Musk “reneged on a massive planned donation” for OpenAI after he failed to gain control.
Musk’s recent comments regarding OpenAI and Stargate suggest that this rivalry is still alive and well. For all Musk’s success since then, it seems that he still isn’t over being rejected from taking over OpenAI in the years before it achieved historic success with the launch of AI model ChatGPT.
As Musk is one of Trump’s close advisors, it is unclear if the president will change his stance on the Stargate Project.
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