- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella isn’t getting bogged down in the funding details of AI infrastructure venture Stargate. His investment package to build “useful things for the real world” had the green light weeks ago.
While key players in the AI race are busy squabbling on X about the recently announced Stargate Project, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is sitting back with tens of billions in investment already approved.
Following snipes by Trump’s seeming right-hand man and DOGE lead, Elon Musk, that partners on the AI infrastructure scheme (which include Microsoft) “don’t have the money,” Nadella simply responded: “I’m good for my $80 billion.”
President Donald Trump revealed the Stargate Project at the beginning of the week, kick-starting a $100 billion investment spree to build AI infrastructure across the United States.
The organization is being led by OpenAI as operational lead and SoftBank as the financial one; Larry Ellison’s Oracle and investment firm MGX are also initial equity funders.
Key technological partners, OpenAI wrote in its announcement of Stargate, include Arm, Nvidia, and its own longtime partner and backer, Microsoft.
Notably, none of Musk’s AI-focused businesses are on the ballot.
Funding not secured
The world’s richest man has been quick to discredit certain key aspects of Stargate. The xAI/SpaceX/Boring Company/Neuralink boss wrote on X (the social media platform he owns): “They don’t actually have the money,” and later: “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
While OpenAI CEO Sam Altman waded into the melee to dismiss the claim, his equivalent at Microsoft is taking a step back from the infighting.
At the start of 2025, Bill Gates–founded Microsoft pledged $80 billion of investment to build data centers, train AI models, and deploy AI applications—more than half of which will be spent on home ground.
Given Microsoft’s ongoing work with OpenAI—reiterated in its Stargate partnership announcement on Tuesday—Nadella was pressed at Davos about Musk’s funding shortage allegations.
Nadella was asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin whether Microsoft would be investing directly into Stargate as well as indirectly through its ongoing work with OpenAI.
The CEO responded: “Microsoft is investing $80 billion in capital each year, and this year we are investing. I’m not particularly in the details of what they’re investing.”
Microsoft did not respond to Fortune's request for comment asking whether it would be investing additional funds.
SoftBank and OpenAI did not respond to Fortune's request for comment on Musk’s allegation.
Responding to Musk’s claim that Stargate’s $100 billion funding benchmark—and $500 billion total war chest—is unachievable, Nadella added: “Look, all I know is I’m good for my $80 billion.
“I’m going to spend $80 billion building out Azure; customers can count on Microsoft with OpenAI models being there everywhere in the world, serving OpenAI models and other models. That’s what I know.”
While Microsoft is partnering on the project that Musk is being vocally critical of, the Tesla boss did concede that Nadella does have the cash reserves required to be involved.
Reposting a clip of Nadella’s interview on X, Musk added on Thursday: “On the other hand, Satya definitely does have the money.”
Nadella—not a man known for wading into tech titan drama—made an exception in replying: “And all this money is not about hyping AI, but is about building useful things for the real world!”
😂 And all this money is not about hyping AI, but is about building useful things for the real world!
— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) January 23, 2025
Nadella and Altman’s quiet partnership
With Altman standing beside President Trump as he announced the Stargate Project (and Nadella one of two missing from the lineup of Magnificent Seven CEOs at the commander-in-chief’s inauguration), it might be easy to question whether OpenAI and Microsoft are beginning to part ways.
Both Altman and Nadella have addressed such theories, saying that while the partnership that has been in place since 2019 has its challenges, the two teams are still on the same page.
Let’s not forget, in 2023, when Altman was unceremoniously ousted from the corner office at OpenAI, Nadella immediately hired him “to lead a new advanced AI research team.”
Writing on X at the time, Nadella added: “We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.”
Ultimately Altman returned to OpenAI, and Nadella seems happy with the arrangement.
Microsoft highlighted in its Stargate announcement that its Azure cloud computing platform has exclusive rights to OpenAI’s API, as well as having rights to OpenAI’s IP. So while OpenAI leading Stargate could look like Altman striking out alone, he still benefits from revenue sharing models with Microsoft.
“The partnership with OpenAI to us is a critical partnership,” Nadella told CNBC at Davos. “We love it, it’s working, it’s created a lot of value for us, and we plan to just continue forward with it.
“It’s true that on Azure there are other models … because customers at the end of the day are going to demand choice, and that’s fine, and we’ll make sure we support it. But having the leading model on Azure exclusively is a great advantage to us.”
