OpenAI and SoftBank are set to lead the project, with SoftBank taking on Stargate’s financial responsibility, according to Fortune. OpenAI’s chief Sam Altman called the venture the “most important project of this era.” Stargate involves an initial private investment of $100 billion into America’s AI infrastructure, a move that would begin a digital “re-industrialization of the United States,” ushering in “hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” OpenAI said in a statement Tuesday.
But Musk’s decision to reveal the rocky ground beneath Trump’s trophy deal, all while elevating his own know-how, could cause cracks in the powerful duo’s dynamic. In December, tech journalist Kara Swisher argued that the relationship between the two self-imagined strongmen is destined to flame out, just as it did with Trump’s former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon.
“They’re both narcissists, and there can be only one narcissist as head of the country, and that’s Donald Trump who just won the election,” Swisher said. “You know he owes things to Elon, but at some point, you know if he takes too much of the attention—think about Steve Bannon. You remember he was on the cover of that magazine, and how quickly he got out, even though he was critical to Trump’s first campaign and he was right in the middle of the White House, and then he wasn’t.”