Trump announces up to $500 billion in private sector AI infrastructure investment
President Trump announced Tuesday billions of dollars in private sector investment to build artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States, although Elon Musk soon cast doubt on the size of the investment.
OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle are planning a joint venture called Stargate, Mr. Trump said in a White House briefing.
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son joined Mr. Trump for the announcement, along with Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle.
"What we want to do is we want to keep it in this country," Mr. Trump said. "China is a competitor, others are competitors. We want to be in this country, and we're making it available. I'm gonna help a lot through emergency declarations, because we have an emergency, we have to get this stuff built. So they have to produce a lot of electricity. And we'll make it possible for them to get this production done easily, at their own plants if they want."
Executives from the companies are expected to commit $500 billion into Stargate over the next four years. Details of the new partnership were not immediately provided.
In the briefing, Ellison said 10 data centers for the project were already under construction in Texas, and that more were planned. Sources previously told CBS News that Stargate would start with a data center project in Texas, and eventually expand to other states.
"AI holds incredible promise for all of us, for every American," Ellison told reporters.
Mr. Trump alleged the venture would create "over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately."
Added Altman, "I think this will be the most important project of this era."
The three executives touted what they believed would be the ability of AI to address healthcare issues.
"I believe that as this technology progresses, we will see diseases get cured at an unprecedented rate," Altman said.
Other investors are expected to join the venture, but it was not immediately clear which ones.
When OpenAI announced the project Tuesday on X, stating, "We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately," Musk responded to the post, "They don't actually have the money." He added, "SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority."
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman replied to Musk on X, writing, "wrong, as you surely know."
With a dig at Musk, who is developing a chatbot called Grok, Altman invited him to "come visit the first site already under way" and wrote, "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."
Trump ally Steve Bannon, when asked whether Musk had undermined the president on AI, said Wednesday, "No doubt about it. The president said it's a $500 billion joint venture. Why does Elon Musk criticize the president after he talks about it?"
Bannon, who was in New York for a pretrial hearing related to an indictment on fraud charges, later said, "He should not reverse what the president's already talked about. It's unacceptable and unsatisfactory. You've seen how out of control he is." A week before Trump's inauguration, Bannon called Musk a "truly evil person" and vowed to get him banished from Trump's inner circle.
