Trump waves off criticism from Musk on AI announcement

A Donald Trump adviser wondered whether the Stargate artificial intelligence project would lead to a split between the US president and Donald Musk, who is leading Trump's government efficiency project. File photo.
A Donald Trump adviser wondered whether the Stargate artificial intelligence project would lead to a split between the US president and Donald Musk, who is leading Trump's government efficiency project. File photo.
Image: Carlos Barria/Reuters

US President Donald Trump on Thursday dismissed criticism from close ally Elon Musk about a $500bn (R9.2bn) artificial intelligence project Trump announced with great fanfare at the White House earlier this week.

On Tuesday Trump announced ChatGPT's creator OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle are planning a joint venture called Stargate which he said will build data centres and create more than 100,000 jobs in the US.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle chair Larry Ellison joined Trump at the White House for the launch.

Musk, the Tesla CEO and the world's richest man who has become a close adviser to Trump, is a rival of Altman and is in an ongoing lawsuit with OpenAI.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Musk doubted the group can put together the funding for the project.

“They don’t have the money,” Musk said.

"SoftBank has well under $10bn (R184.2bn) secured. I have that on good authority.”

Trump, taking questions from reporters at the White House on Thursday, was asked if Musk's criticism of the AI deal bothered him.

"It doesn't. He hates one of the people in the deal," Trump.

"People in the deal are very, very smart . But, Elon, one of the people he happens to hate. I have certain hatreds of people, too."

Regarding Musk's claims about insufficient funding, Trump said: "I don't know if they do, but they’re putting up the money. The government’s not putting up anything. They’re very rich people, so I hope they do.”

A Trump adviser wondered whether the incident would lead to a split between Trump and Musk, who is leading Trump's government efficiency project.

The adviser said: "The end may be in sight."

Reuters


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