Mere hours after the OpenAI announced the ambitious Stargate Project, which would see up to $500 billion in private AI infrastructure construction over the next four years, Tesla CEO and newly-minted presidential advisor Elon Musk alleged on social media that the project’s backers, “don’t actually have the money.”
Announcing The Stargate Project
The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately. This infrastructure will secure…
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 21, 2025
The Stargate Project would be a new company financially backed by Softbank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX, with Arm, Nvidia, and long-time OpenAI investor, Microsoft, offering technical guidance. Its purpose is to build out the power-and-resource-hungry data centers that make today’s large language models possible on OpenAI’s behalf.
“This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world,” the company’s announcement post reads. “This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.”
The project’s backers have committed to “deploy” the first $100 billion immediately to begin building In fact, the consortium has already broken ground in Texas for its first construction project.
“The scale of this investment, obviously, is huge. And what I think that says about the likely progress of the technology, at least what all of us believe, is correspondingly huge,” OpenAI Sam Altman told Fox News on Wednesday.
Donald Trump has publicly supported the venture, saying Tuesday, “What we want to do is we want to keep it in this country… China is a competitor, others are competitors. We want to be in this country, and we’re making it available.”
In what could have been an easy and early optics win for the new presidential administration, Elon Musk has interposed himself. In an X post late Wednesday, Musk insinuated that the entire endeavor was a sham. “They don’t actually have the money,” he wrote. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
OpenAI Sam Altman initially showed his belly by writing in response, “I genuinely respect your accomplishments and think you are the most inspiring entrepreneur of our time,” before his subsequent replies grew sharper. “I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies,” he added, “but in your new role i [sic] hope you’ll mostly put [America] first.”
want to come visit the first site already under way?
this is great for the country. i realize what is great for the country isn't always what's optimal for your companies, but in your new role i hope you'll mostly put 🇺🇸 first.
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 22, 2025
This isn’t the first time that Musk and Altman have clashed publicly. The two are engaged in a years-long running legal battle over OpenAI’s governance, Altman’s continued leadership of the company, and more recently, the startup’s decision to transition to a for-profit business model. Musk was an early investor in the company but left in 2018 after a brief leadership struggle. He subsequently founded xAI, makers of the Grok chatbot/unhinged image generator, shortly after signing an open letter arguing that for a six-month “pause” in AI development, “to let society adapt.” Musk spent an estimated $10 billion on AI ventures in 2024.
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.