- In the latest development in the pair’s longtime feud, Elon Musk, a key White House advisor as well as the founder of AI company xAI, criticized the $500 billion Stargate AI infrastructure plan backed by rival Sam Altman and his company OpenAI.
His staff was reportedly furious, but President Donald Trump was untroubled after Elon Musk’s animosity for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to translate into direct criticism of the White House’s $500 billion Stargate project.
When asked by a reporter whether Musk’s public criticism of the project upset him, Trump shrugged off the question.
“No, it doesn’t,” Trump said Thursday. “He hates one of the people in the deal.”
The President’s response was likely referencing Altman, who has a long history of strained relations with Musk that has now spilled over into the second Trump administration’s first landmark infrastructure initiative.
The Stargate project promises an initial $100 billion investment provided by OpenAI and Japanese investment company Softbank, along with Oracle and UAE investment firm MGX, to build data centers in the U.S., with a total $500 billion investment planned over four years.
Stargate was hailed by Trump as “the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history.” Yet Musk, who is a key Trump advisor but also the founder of OpenAI rival xAI, was unimpressed.
“SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority,” he wrote in a reply to an OpenAI post about the project on his social media website X.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back on Musk’s criticism Wednesday.
“The American people should take President Trump and those CEOs’ words for it. These investments are coming to our great country and American jobs are coming along with them,” Leavitt told Fox News.
Trump’s staff immediately criticized Musk’s comments. One unnamed Trump ally accused the richest man in the world of abusing his closeness to the president, Politico reported.
Altman, for his part, told OpenAI employees to “simply ignore” Musk’s criticism of the project, the Washington Post reported, citing an internal OpenAI source.
Musk and OpenAI did not immediately return Fortune’s request for comment.
Yet that doesn’t mean Altman himself stayed quiet. After first responding to Musk’s post by calling him “the most inspiring entrepreneur of our time,” Altman later shot back at the Tesla CEO.
“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 [the U.S.] first,” he wrote in a Wednesday post on X.
Musk and Altman's yearslong feud
The squabble over Stargate is just the latest development in a feud between Musk and Altman that dates back to when they worked together as cofounders of OpenAI. After OpenAI refused Musk’s offer to take control of the company, the world’s richest man left in 2018 and said he would build his own AI effort within Tesla, according to OpenAI.
Musk in late February 2024 sued both Altman and OpenAI for allegedly violating its founding nonprofit principles, in part by striking a multibillion-dollar agreement with Microsoft. Musk and Altman reportedly had a friendly chat at a conference the following month that ended in a hug, according to the Wall Street Journal, and Musk withdrew the lawsuit a few months later.
But Musk refiled the lawsuit in August, and the tension between him and Altman has now seemingly escalated. The Tesla CEO has taken to calling Altman “Swindly Sam,” a nickname mirroring Trump’s jabs at political rivals.
Meanwhile, Altman said in a Wednesday post that he can both respect and criticize Musk.
“I don't think he's a nice person or treating us fairly but you have to respect the guy and he pushes all of us to be more ambitious,” he wrote.
