Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Elon Musk Vs. OpenAI Feud gets heated over Stargate

Transcript

Elon Musk Vs. OpenAI Feud gets heated over Stargate · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Elon Musk is injecting personal rivalry into international
• 0:04
  business. But imagine if a feud between
• 0:07
  two tech billionaires could shape US foreign strategy and
• 0:10
  global AI development. Could that now be happening in
• 0:14
  the Middle East? So earlier this month, Open AI,
• 0:17
  Oracle, NVIDIA, Cisco and Emirati tech firm G42 announced
• 0:23
  they would jointly build an expansive AI campus in the UAE.
• 0:28
  The project, called Stargate EMSA, turned the UAE into a
• 0:31
  central hub for artificial intelligence research and
• 0:34
  infrastructure. But soon after this
• 0:36
  announcement, Elon Musk attempted to intervene and
• 0:40
  derail the agreement. His issue?
• 0:44
  Open AI, led by Sam Altman, his former ally turned adversary,
• 0:48
  was tapped for the deal, while his own company, XAI, was left
• 0:53
  out entirely. This wasn't a subtle push.
• 0:56
  According to a person directly familiar with the situation,
• 0:59
  Musk actively contacted parties involved to express frustration
• 1:03
  and to argue that President Donald Trump would not approve
• 1:07
  the deal in its current form. The backlash caused the delay of
• 1:11
  several days in making the Stargate agreement public as
• 1:14
  stakeholders, including the White House, scrambled to deal
• 1:17
  with Musk's objections. Now, the US government didn't
• 1:20
  publicly acknowledge Musk's role in the delay.
• 1:23
  White House press secretary Kelly Levitt instead issued a
• 1:27
  broad statement praising the partnership between the US and
• 1:30
  UAE as a groundbreaking framework to accelerate EI
• 1:34
  infrastructure. She credited Donald Trump and
• 1:37
  his team for securing the deal, which she said would benefit
• 1:40
  both nations. Still, Musk's fingerprints were
• 1:43
  all over it. He was not in the UAE when the
• 1:45
  deal was finalized, but he had recently accompanied President
• 1:49
  Trump in Saudi Arabia during a Middle East trip.
• 1:52
  You know, A senior White House official confirmed Musk had
• 1:55
  raised concerns directly to the administration about whether all
• 1:58
  AI firms were receiving fair treatment.
• 2:01
  Now, Musk has long positioned himself as a central figure in
• 2:03
  the USAI policy. Currently heads the Department
• 2:06
  of Government Efficiency. Temporary role in the Trump
• 2:09
  administration aimed at shrinking the federal workforce.
• 2:12
  And Musk helped fund Trump's campaign with close to $300
• 2:15
  million. In a sense taken on a highly
• 2:18
  miscible political and technological role.
• 2:21
  Now his animosity towards Sam Altman dates back years,
• 2:25
  decades. Both helped Co found Open AI in
• 2:28
  2015 as a not profit research venture.
• 2:32
  But as Open AI evolved, particularly after its strategic
• 2:35
  partnership with Microsoft and transition toward a for profit
• 2:38
  structure, Elon Musk became increasingly hostile.
• 2:43
  He left the company, then publicly criticized it for
• 2:45
  abandoning its original mission. Now, this year, Elon Musk sued
• 2:50
  Open AI for breach of contract and attempted to block its
• 2:53
  corporate restructuring. In February, he even LED an
• 2:56
  investor bid to acquire the company outright for $97.4
• 3:00
  billion, but he ultimately failed at that.
• 3:05
  They said no thank you Elon, we'll do it ourselves.
• 3:08
  Meanwhile, Musk has been expanding X AI, the rival
• 3:12
  artificial intelligence startup. He launched a counter Open AI
• 3:15
  recently acquired full ownership of X, the social platform that
• 3:19
  he bought from Twitter, and it started embedding XA is Grok
• 3:24
  into both X and Telegram, and Musk argued that Grok offers a
• 3:28
  less censored, more truthful version of generative AI.
• 3:32
  Now the Stargate project has become a flashpoint in his
• 3:35
  rivalry. In January, Trump announced the
• 3:38
  initiative with Open AI, Oracle and SoftBank, pledging a massive
• 3:42
  $100 billion in additional capital, with potential for that
• 3:46
  to grow to $500 billion / 4 years now.
• 3:49
  Musk quickly dismissed the plan on X.
• 3:52
  He claimed that the financial backing behind Stargate wasn't
• 3:54
  real. He argued the SoftBank had less
• 3:57
  than $10 billion secured. Just two months later, SoftBank
• 4:01
  invested 40 billion into Open AI at a valuation of 300 billion,
• 4:06
  which totally weakened Musk's public criticism.
• 4:10
  Now, Musk's attempts to interfere with Stargate add a
• 4:13
  new dimension to his feud with Sam Altman.
• 4:16
  The dispute is no longer confined to Courtrooms X or
• 4:20
  blogs. That's now affecting US
• 4:23
  relationships with foreign courtrooms, foreign governments,
• 4:27
  and complicating deals that involve hundreds of billions of
• 4:30
  dollars in capital. Now, the race to build AI
• 4:33
  infrastructure is not just a business competition.
• 4:36
  Countries that lead in computing power and AI model training
• 4:39
  capacity can influence everything from military
• 4:42
  capability to economic stability.
• 4:45
  The open AI at the center of the Stargate deal, Altman's vision,
• 4:49
  is being tied directly to US influence abroad.
• 4:53
  Musk's exclusion isn't just a personal insult, though.
• 4:57
  It's a loss of control now. At the same time, his pressure
• 5:01
  on the Trump administration raises questions about whether
• 5:04
  government AI policy is being shaped by personal business
• 5:07
  grievances. Musk's alignment with Trump has
• 5:10
  so far given him some influence, but Stargate's shows that there
• 5:15
  are some limits. In the end, the deal went
• 5:17
  through without him. Stargate Campus will move
• 5:19
  forward in the UAE, powered by a coalition of global tech giants.
• 5:24
  Without XAI, Musk still has a growing presence in AI, and his
• 5:29
  next moves will likely respond directly to this exclusion.
• 5:33
  And for now, Stargate deal signals that Altman's Open AI is
• 5:38
  surviving Musk's challenges, and they're expanding
• 5:41
  internationally. Musk, who's always reactive,
• 5:45
  will likely find new ways to re enter the AI race on his own
• 5:49
  terms and will defeat Open AI and Altman.