Donald Trump held the first press conference of his new presidential term on Tuesday, along with three billionaires who are starting a new partnership called Stargate that they claim will create wonderful new innovations in artificial intelligence. And while they claimed this new company would be investing “up to” $500 billion there are still a lot of details about the project that aren’t yet clear.
The new company is a product of initial partners that include Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI, according to a statement posted to X on Tuesday. And three representatives from the new company, Softbank’s Masayoshi Son, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, showed up at the White House to announce the goals with Trump.
The short version? They’re creating this strange coalition of tech companies to build data centers and create new AI infrastructure that will be helped along by Trump and the U.S. government. And all of this new AI investment will supposedly lead to tools that will help the average person. That seemed to be the message that each of the billionaires wanted to repeat on Tuesday. This was really going to help the average person, they insisted in a press conference livestreamed on YouTube.
“Together, these world-leading technology giants are announcing the formation of Stargate, so put that name down in your books, because I think you’re going to hear a lot about it in the future,” Trump said in characteristically overblown style, “a new American company that will invest $500 billion, at least, in AI infrastructure in the United States and very, very quickly… moving very rapidly, creating over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately.”
The official statements posted by the company were a bit more nuanced. The Stargate Project “intends” to invest $500 billion over the next four years in the U.S., OpenAI said in a statement posted to X. But the initial spending will amount to about $100 billion.
“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 statement 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.”
Softbank’s Masayoshi Son called it the “beginning of our golden age.” And Oracle’s Larry Ellison called it “a very exciting program.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called Stargate, “the most important project for this era” and promised that all of the new investment his company was making would help cure diseases. Altman was actually prompted by Trump to talk about the medical advances that AI would supposedly figure out.
“I hear so many positive things about what it’s going to do for medical research and for solving things, cancer, and all the different problems. How will AI help us with the fight against various problems, diseases, et cetera?” Trump asked Altman.
“I believe that as this technology progresses, we will see diseases get cured at an unprecedented rate,” Altman responded. “We will be amazed at how quickly we’re curing this cancer and that one, and heart disease. And what this will do for the ability to deliver very high quality health care, the costs. But really to cure the diseases at a rapid, rapid rate, I think will be among the most important things this technology does.”
Ellison also stressed how useful this AI tech would be for health records, specifically allowing doctors to “understand the condition of their patients, and being able to provide health care plans better than they otherwise would be.”
Noticeably absent from the festivities at the White House on Tuesday was Elon Musk, the maybe-Nazi-saluting billionaire who was instrumental in putting Trump back in the White House. Musk is a dire enemy of his former business partner Sam Altman, and the two often talk shit online. But Musk replied directly to OpenAI’s announcement on X, writing “They don’t actually have the money” and “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.” Nobody knows, of course, whether Musk is telling the truth about that one.
SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2025
Where does this leave the Trump-Musk relationship? That’s a good question. But it seems unlikely that this announcement means the two men won’t continue to work together. Trump needs Musk and Musk needs Trump. And as much as people enjoy writing fanfic about how they hate each other and somehow “know” their relationship will be ending soon, we’ll believe it when we see it.