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Elon Musk slams Project Stargate initiative
Claims backers of $500bn initiative "don't actually have the money"
Sam Altman, Satya Nadella, hit back at Musk claims

The global AI market appears to have descended into a playground battle of insults after Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella, and others all clashed over the launch of Project Stargate.

Revealed earlier this week to huge fanfare as part of the new Trump administration's plans to boost AI across the US, Project Stargate is reportedly set to see as much as $500 billion invested into data centers to support the increasing data needs of Altman's OpenAI.

However, X owner and newly-anointed White House advisor Musk has sought to dampen enthusiasm, claiming in a series of online posts that Stargate's investors (including Microsoft and Softbank) "don't actually have the money".

Project Stargate "swindler"

The initial pledges by Stargate's partners were around $100 billion, part of which is being invested into a data center in Abilene, Texas.

However Musk looked to pour cold water on these claims, posting, “SoftBank has well under $10 billion secured. I have that on good authority.”

A later post, a reply to a post criticizing Altman, saw Musk say, “Sam is a swindler.”

For his part, Altman was quick to fire back, and in his own X post responding to Musk’s allegation that SoftBank was short of capital, stated “Wrong, as you surely know."

“[Stargate] 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 [US] first," he added.

In later posts, Altman told Musk, “I genuinely respect your accomplishments and think you are the most inspiring entrepreneur of our time,” later adding, “I don’t think [Musk is] a nice person or treating us fairly, but you have to respect the guy, and he pushes all of us to be more ambitious.”

Altman was not the only figure to fire back at Musk's claims, as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella later declined to comment in detail, but did say, "All I know is, I’m good for my $80 billion,” when asked in a CNBC interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

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Mike Moore is Deputy Editor at TechRadar Pro. He has worked as a B2B and B2C tech journalist for nearly a decade, including at one of the UK's leading national newspapers and fellow Future title ITProPortal, and when he's not keeping track of all the latest enterprise and workplace trends, can most likely be found watching, following or taking part in some kind of sport.