Musk and Altman are at it again, and this time, recently inaugurated President Donald Trump is somewhat in the crossfire, although he seems pretty unbothered by the openly pouting Elon.
Earlier this week, Trump announced a $500 billion investment in Stargate, including a $100 billion initial commitment and another $400 billion over the course of the next four years. Stargate is a joint venture between a combination of tech giants and foreign investment groups, most notably OpenAI and Oracle, and Soft Bank and MGX respectively.
The Stargate Project is an initiative set to create and develop AI data centres around the United States in order to support the future of artificial intelligence. Sam Altman’s connection to Stargate via OpenAI – and the fact that his company will directly benefit from the White House’s financial injection – seems to have deeply upset a green-eyed Elon Musk.
But, where did the conflict begin and how did these big tech titans go from business partners and friends to fiercely competitive (and publicly feuding) adversaries?
Friends to Foes: The Story Behind the Musk-Altman Feud
The origin story of the Musk-Altman rivalry goes back to their shared efforts in establishing OpenAI back in 2015, but the relationship ultimately turned sour and led to Elon’s abrupt – nd later controversial – departure from the company.
The reasoning behind Sam and Elon’s falling out was supposedly centred on OpenAI’s initial status as a non-profit organisation and its looming shift to become a for-profit company, discussions about which began in 2017.
OpenAI stated at the time, and still vehemently asserts, that it stands strong on its initial mission – to ensure that its work in the AI space “…benefit all of humanity…” rather than just large conglomerates and wealthy individuals. Furthermore, they purport that the reason behind their changing approach is due to a joined realisation that in order to achieve Artificial Generative Intelligence (AGI) in the future, they’ll need far more funding and resources, and that would not be possible within their initial non–profit model.
In opposition to this seemingly reasonable explanation, Elon’s camp has claimed that he was against the company’s proposed transformation into a for-profit organisation, since this move is in direct contradiction with OpenAI’s initial mission statement.
Furthermore, Musk made some big claims about OpenAI’s funding and his personal contributions. According to OpenAI, Musk wanted to announce a massive $1 billion funding commitment to OpenAI while in reality, it had actually only raised $135-odd million at that time, less than $50 million of which came from Musk himself despite some other over-inflated claims.
In light of the company’s financial situation, Altman and the other founders felt that OpenAI required more resources to achieve its goals (and, ultimately, stick to its mission), while Musk claimed that the company was doing fine in terms of funding and the shift towards profit-making was a greed-motivated move under the guise of growth and progress.
Just to add extra spice to an already conflict-ridden dispute, Altman and OpenAI’s explanation of Musk’s departure, in opposition to his story, is not that he was simply against the move towards the company making a profit on moral grounds, but rather that he wanted too big of a share of it. The story goes that as the company’s mission and model began to shift, Elon was not only okay with it, he actually demanded majority shares. When Altman and the other founders refused to comply, he withdrew from OpenAI.
Both parties vehemently deny the opposing stories, but even now, nearly seven years later, there’s still no concrete answer as to whose truth is the truth.
So, did OpenAI’s founders give in to greed and neglect the moral code that inspired the company’s original mission? Or, is it as simple as Musk just not getting his way and kicking up a fuss as a result?
Who really knows, but one thing’s for sure, these two Silicon Valley stalwarts are definitely no longer on the same team, and now, the Stargate saga has thrown fresh fuel onto the fire, reigniting old tensions and bolstering the competition between Musk and Altman in what’s become known as “the AI arms race”.
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Stargate Sparks Fresh Tensions Between AI Billionaires
At the centre of the Stargate scandal is Trump’s contentious relationships with Altman and Musk, both of which have become a hot topic both leading up to the American presidential election and especially now following his inaugeration.
The US president has maintained professional ties and apparent friendships with both business moguls, but up until now, it’s largely been Musk who’s been viewed as Trump’s righthand man in the world of big tech, especially in the wake of his appointment as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
But, since Trump’s announcement of his administration’s $500 billion investment in Stargate – a financial injection that will be directly beneficial for OpenAI and Sam Altman’s professional mission – it feels like the tides are changing.
Elon Musk didn’t waste time making his feelings known, taking to X to slam Stargate and express his disagreement with the investment and skepticism over what it really means for the future of the company and the true positive impact it’ll actually end up having.
This is mostly in light of the fact that this type of flashy financial injection often inspires additional investment as it tends to indicate good professional and financial health and a promising future. In opposition to this, Musk Tweeted, referencing Stargate, that “…they don’t actually have the money”.
This seems to be a specific reference to the Softbank Group Corp., Stargate’s lad JV investor, that has claimed an initial investment of $100 billion. Musk has asserted, however, that in reality, “SoftBank has well under $10 billion secured. I have that on good authority.”
Altman has immediately refuted this claim. But, is there any truth to Elon’s stories? Is he correct to be concerned about the amount of faith that’s being put into Stargate or are their projections realistic?
It’s impossible to know, but it certainly seems fair not to have complete blind faith in this investment and absolutely everything Stargate is promising, in terms of the future of AGI as well as things like job creation and more.
The primary question has become whether or not this investment in Stargate will be broadly beneficial for the AI industry and the future of AGI and big tech in not only the United States but all over the world, or, will it simply prove to be a massive win for Sam Altman and OpenAI?
Locked in a Big Tech Love Triangle
At this point, construction has already begun on a few Texas-based data centres that are a core component of the project, working steadily towards the initial goal to create 10 data centres in the short term and grow that number to 20 over time, eventually ending up with a total of more than 10 million square feet of data centres in the US.
Clearly, the project is already becoming a reality, and other than vaguely acknowledging Musk and Altman’s rivalry, Trump doesn’t seem to be getting involved in the latest chapter of the billionaires’ brawl.
Speaking to the press at the White House last week, Trump addressed the Musk-Altman question by saying that Musk’s outburst was indicative of his dislike of Altman rather than a true lack of faith in the Stargate project. He stated that Elon’s comments on X and elsewhere were just because “…one of the people he happens to hate…”, clearly referring to Sam Altman.
So, will Trump stand firm in his public and financial support of Stargate, OpenAI and Sam Altman despite Musk’s unhappiness? And, will Elon get over it or will this end up being the disagreement that leads to the deterioration of Musk and Trump’s relationship that so many have long believed is inevitable?
Much like with a lot of what happens under Trump and in the busy and sometimes bizarre world of Elon Musk, we can speculate as much as we like, but time will be the ultimate judge.
