The xAI owner Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are fighting on X about Stargate, the enormous infrastructure project to build data centres for OpenAI across the US.
OpenAI said on Tuesday that it would team up with SoftBank and Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) to build multiple data centres for artificial intelligence (AI) in the United States, Xinhua news agency reported.
The companies expect to commit $100 billion to Stargate initially and invest $500 billion into the venture over the next four years.
"SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility," the joint statement noted.
"They don't actually have the money," Musk wrote in a series of posts on X on Tuesday.
But "SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority."
Altman responded to Musk's claim that SoftBank was short of capital in an X post on Wednesday.
"You don't really know, as you are clearly misinformed, but wrong," Altman said.
Altman added that Stargate is great for the country.
"I realize that what's good for the country is not always optimal for your companies, but in your new position, I hope you'll largely put America first."
xAI, like OpenAI, is starved for infrastructure to develop its AI systems.
Musk's company spent $12 billion on its solitary data center in Memphis and could spend billions more modernizing the facility, according to a report by TechCrunch.
Musk, an early investor and member of the board at OpenAI, sued Altman's company last year, charging it had strayed from its founding goals as a nonprofit research lab that furthered the public good rather than making money. Musk has increased the intensity of his battle with new claims and demands for a court injunction that would freeze OpenAI's plan to transform itself into a more openly for-profit entity. A date for an early February hearing in California federal court is set.
The world's richest man, whose companies include Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), SpaceX and X, last year started his own rival AI company, xAI, that is building its own big data centre in Memphis, Tennessee.
Tech news outlet The Information first reported on an OpenAI data centre project called Stargate in March 2024, indicating that it had been in the works long before Trump announced it.
Another company – Crusoe Energy Systems – last July announced that it was building a large and "specially designed AI data centre" outside Abilene, Texas, at a site run by energy technology company Lancium.
Crusoe and Lancium said in a joint statement at the time that the project was "supported by a multibillion-dollar investment" but didn't disclose its backers.
The companies said the project would be powered with renewable sources, such as nearby solar farms, in a way that Lancium CEO Michael McNamara said would "deliver the maximum amount of green energy at the lowest possible cost". AI technology requires huge amounts of electricity to build and operate. Crusoe said it would own and develop the facility.
It is unclear how and when that project became the first phase of the Stargate investment revealed by Trump.
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