Tech CEOs spar over Trump’s Stargate AI project

On By Littum

L-R: Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce, and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.

Reuters

Some of the biggest names in technology have clashed after President Donald Trump unveiled his $500 billion private AI investment project.

Earlier this week, Trump announced a joint venture with OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank to invest billions of dollars in increasing domestic computing capacity to boost AI development in the United States.

Dubbed Stargate, the project was unveiled at the White House by Trump, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Son will be chairman of Stargate, while the semiconductor company Arm, Microsoft, NvidiaOracle and OpenAI will serve as key initial technology partners.

The leaders committed to investing $100 billion and up to $500 billion over the next four years.

The first blow was thrown by Elon Musk – a close ally of Trump and himself a key figure in AI with his startup xAI – who claimed in a post on his X social media platform that the companies involved in the project “actually don’t have the money” to finance the investment.

“SoftBank has secured well under $10B. I have that on good authority,” Musk added in a subsequent post. Altmann, response to Musk’s claimsaid. “Wrong, as you probably know.”

Elon Musk 'is right' about SoftBank funding for Stargate, says Jefferies Asia

“Do you want to visit the first place that is already in progress?” Altman added. “This is great for the country. I realize what’s good for the country isn’t always what’s best for your businesses, but in your new role, I hope you’ll mostly put (the United States) first. “

Musk chairs the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a major White House government effort. He was by far Trump’s biggest financial backer in the 2024 election.

Possible Microsoft-OpenAI divide emerges

On Wednesday, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff suggested the investment plan could create tension between OpenAI and Microsoft, which are close partners.

OpenAI said on Tuesday that it had finalized an agreement with Microsoft to serve as its exclusive cloud provider. The change in relationship was revealed as part of the Stargate Project announcement.

“I think it’s extremely important that OpenAI gets to other platforms quickly because Microsoft is building their own AI,” Benioff told CNBC. “I don’t think Microsoft will use OpenAI in the future, they will have their own frontier models.”

“They’ve made it very clear that it’s too expensive and too difficult for them and that they’d like to have their own,” the Salesforce executive added. “That’s why they hired Mustafa Suleyman (as Microsoft AI CEO) — and Mustafa Suleyman and Sam Altman are not best friends.”

Microsoft last year appointed Suleyman, a co-founder of Google’s AI lab DeepMind, to lead its new AI division.

Microsoft is the largest single investor in OpenAI, having plowed billions of dollars into the company. It also offers OpenAI models on its Azure cloud platform as part of a commercial agreement between the two firms.

‘I’m good for my 80 billion dollars’

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addressed concerns about the tech giant’s relationship with OpenAI on Wednesday, saying the two continue to share a “critical partnership.”

Watch CNBC's full interview with Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella

“Sam (Altman) wants to continue scaling laws to build more computing so he can train more models,” Nadella told CNBC. “We have the right of first refusal. He comes to us first. If we meet those needs, we’ll make it. If not, he can go to these other providers.”

When asked about Musk’s claim that OpenAI and other companies involved in Stargate do not have the funds to make up the total initial commitment of $100 billion, Nadella said: “Look, all I know is that I’m good for my $80 billion.”

Microsoft announced at the start of 2025 that it plans to spend 80 billion dollars this year on the construction of data centers to increase its AI efforts.

“I want to spend $80 billion building out Azure,” Nadella told CNBC. “Customers can count on Microsoft.”

— CNBC’s Eamon Javers and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report