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OpenAI: Announcing The Stargate Project

This is a master class in business. Become president, do some deals with billionaire benefactors, and watch the other billionaires come crawling. Let's see what Musk, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Amazon, and the other AI giants do. More big "beautiful building" deals are coming, absolutely. And who will be the biggest winner here? Taiwan, because none of these AI deals are worth the paper they are written on without TSMC. :ROFLMAO:
It's sad that it has come down to one company, as Intel and Samsung lag behind. There should be more than three companies at the cutting edge of technology.
 
I do not think this announcement will have a big impact on anything. What surprises me is that Elon Musk's AI company was not involved? I thought Musk was controlling Trump? :ROFLMAO:

Let's not forget all of the post-pandemic press releases that never came true.

Politics is fun!

Some wealthy individuals and large, affluent companies already have their own big AI endeavors, driven by financial and competitive considerations. In March 2024, it was revealed that OpenAI and Microsoft would collaborate on a $100 billion project, codenamed Stargate. Let's call it Stargate 1.0. Nine months later, the project ballooned into a $500 billion venture, with Microsoft no longer involved, at this point.

Although Mr. Son is a wealthy person with a track record of both successful and less fortunate investments, he still requires major investment partners.

Elon Musk, on the other hand, already has full control over his own AI venture, xAI. While Musk and Larry Ellison are known to be friends, collaborating on an AI project of this scale together would likely be challenging for them.
 
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I'm always skeptical of Trump's big-money "investment deals" - most come to naught, and nobody seems to look at the track record. I have harped many time about the Foxconn Wisconsin con that Trump helped launch. But the emergence of Son in this one reminds of the 2016 "deal" with Son for $50B invested in the US. About $16B of that money went into WeWork - not exactly a win for the US or for Softbank. Not sure where the rest went (Son/Softbank had already done the ARM deal prior).


And of course Trump has already done a $100B "deal" with Son already.


But from what I can tell, there's no accountability as to whether the investment has actually happened and how those investments have performed. Should be interesting.
 
I do not think this announcement will have a big impact on anything. What surprises me is that Elon Musk's AI company was not involved? I thought Musk was controlling Trump? :ROFLMAO:

Let's not forget all of the post-pandemic press releases that never came true.

Politics is fun!

Don't forget Elon Musk has sued OpenAI and it hasn't resolved yet. Before Mr. Musk's head can cool down, it's impossible for them to form a new venture.
 

Elon Musk bashes the $500 billion AI project Trump announced, claiming its backers don’t ‘have the mone​

ab255141b0492ece9f5c4d7e29e136dc


Elon Musk bashes the $500 billion AI project Trump announced, claiming its backers don’t ‘have the money’
Shortly after President Donald Trump announced a new massive AI infrastructure investment from the White House, “First Buddy” Elon Musk tried to tear it down.

“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
Trump said the investment will create a new company, called Stargate, to grow artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. The leaders of SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle stood alongside Trump during the announcement. Their respective companies will invest $100 billion in total for the project to start, with plans to pour up to $500 billion into Stargate in the coming years.

The comments are a notable takedown of a major White House project from someone that is in Trump’s innermost circle. As a sign of how involved Musk is in the first days of the administration, Musk said he was in the Oval Office on Tuesday as Trump signed a pardon for Ross William Ulbricht, founder of the dark web marketplace SilkRoad. Musk had also dispatched a top staffer from his SpaceX and X companies to help ensure the release of convicted January 6 rioters after Trump signed a blanket pardon.

But perhaps it should not be a surprise that Musk is going after an OpenAI initiative. Musk is in an ongoing lawsuit with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, who was at the White House for the announcement. Musk, who has said he “doesn’t trust” Altman, claims in the lawsuit the ChatGPT has abandoned its original nonprofit mission by reserving some of its most advanced AI technology for private customers.

The companies involved in Stargate have not publicly disclosed how they will contribute the funds, but they don’t necessarily need the money in the bank to support it — they could raise debt or sign on other equity investors.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday rebuffed Musk’s comments, saying in a Fox News interview, “the American people should take President Trump and those CEOs’ words for it.”

“President Trump is very excited about this infrastructure announcement in the field of AI, which is obviously growing, and something the United States of America needs to capitalize on, because our adversaries, such as China, are very advanced in this field,” Leavitt said. “So, the American people should take President Trump and those CEOs’ words for it -– these investments are coming to our great country, and American jobs are coming along with them.”

Altman replied directly to Musk’s claim on X, writing “wrong, as you surely know. 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 (America) first.”

A source familiar with Stargate said Musk’s assertion is not true.

Softbank, the source pointed out, has $24.3 billion of cash on its balance sheet per its latest earnings and that it is comfortable taking on more debt to help fund the project, the wherewithal to access more capital.

The source pointed out that MGX has $100 billion in capital commitments, Oracle has $11 billion in cash on its balance sheet and OpenAI recently announced it has more than $10 billion from its recent round of venture capital.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, which is working with OpenAI on Stargate, said on CNBC Wednesday “all I know is I’m good for my $80 billion.”

 
This is a master class in business. Become president, do some deals with billionaire benefactors, and watch the other billionaires come crawling. Let's see what Musk, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Amazon, and the other AI giants do. More big "beautiful building" deals are coming, absolutely. And who will be the biggest winner here? Taiwan, because none of these AI deals are worth the paper they are written on without TSMC. :ROFLMAO:

At this rapid pace of competition for AI supremacy among these wealthy companies, TSMC might question how many of these efforts are genuine versus mere hype. TSMC cannot afford to invest billions into building fabs without carefully considering whether this AI boom will last long enough to recover the cost of such massive investments.
 

Elon Musk bashes the $500 billion AI project Trump announced, claiming its backers don’t ‘have the mone​

ab255141b0492ece9f5c4d7e29e136dc


Elon Musk bashes the $500 billion AI project Trump announced, claiming its backers don’t ‘have the money’
Shortly after President Donald Trump announced a new massive AI infrastructure investment from the White House, “First Buddy” Elon Musk tried to tear it down.

“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
Trump said the investment will create a new company, called Stargate, to grow artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. The leaders of SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle stood alongside Trump during the announcement. Their respective companies will invest $100 billion in total for the project to start, with plans to pour up to $500 billion into Stargate in the coming years.

The comments are a notable takedown of a major White House project from someone that is in Trump’s innermost circle. As a sign of how involved Musk is in the first days of the administration, Musk said he was in the Oval Office on Tuesday as Trump signed a pardon for Ross William Ulbricht, founder of the dark web marketplace SilkRoad. Musk had also dispatched a top staffer from his SpaceX and X companies to help ensure the release of convicted January 6 rioters after Trump signed a blanket pardon.

But perhaps it should not be a surprise that Musk is going after an OpenAI initiative. Musk is in an ongoing lawsuit with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, who was at the White House for the announcement. Musk, who has said he “doesn’t trust” Altman, claims in the lawsuit the ChatGPT has abandoned its original nonprofit mission by reserving some of its most advanced AI technology for private customers.

The companies involved in Stargate have not publicly disclosed how they will contribute the funds, but they don’t necessarily need the money in the bank to support it — they could raise debt or sign on other equity investors.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday rebuffed Musk’s comments, saying in a Fox News interview, “the American people should take President Trump and those CEOs’ words for it.”

“President Trump is very excited about this infrastructure announcement in the field of AI, which is obviously growing, and something the United States of America needs to capitalize on, because our adversaries, such as China, are very advanced in this field,” Leavitt said. “So, the American people should take President Trump and those CEOs’ words for it -– these investments are coming to our great country, and American jobs are coming along with them.”

Altman replied directly to Musk’s claim on X, writing “wrong, as you surely know. 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 (America) first.”

A source familiar with Stargate said Musk’s assertion is not true.

Softbank, the source pointed out, has $24.3 billion of cash on its balance sheet per its latest earnings and that it is comfortable taking on more debt to help fund the project, the wherewithal to access more capital.

The source pointed out that MGX has $100 billion in capital commitments, Oracle has $11 billion in cash on its balance sheet and OpenAI recently announced it has more than $10 billion from its recent round of venture capital.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, which is working with OpenAI on Stargate, said on CNBC Wednesday “all I know is I’m good for my $80 billion.”

Could you write an article about the Stargate project? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the future of the semiconductor industry, especially with the current investment pouring into AI. Do you think this "AI bubble" will ultimately benefit the entire industry? Also, what are your thoughts on Sam’s $7 trillion dream?
 
Microsoft is a major investor in OpenAI ($13B).
If you listen to his statement at the end, Microsoft infrastructure will be used to host models from OpenAI and others.



Based on the statement from the CEO of Salesforce, the person leading the AI initiative at Microsoft does not appear to be a fan of Sam Altman.
 
At this rapid pace of competition for AI supremacy among these wealthy companies, TSMC might question how many of these efforts are genuine versus mere hype. TSMC cannot afford to invest billions into building fabs without carefully considering whether this AI boom will last long enough to recover the cost of such massive investments.

Nvidia has the same concern, right? Hopefully CC Wei and Jensen talked about this at dinner last week.

Personally I think AI infrastructure is a bubble until AI hits the edge and is productized on a massive scale. Chat Bots will not fund the big AI build.
 
I'm always skeptical of Trump's big-money "investment deals" - most come to naught, and nobody seems to look at the track record. I have harped many time about the Foxconn Wisconsin con that Trump helped launch. But the emergence of Son in this one reminds of the 2016 "deal" with Son for $50B invested in the US. About $16B of that money went into WeWork - not exactly a win for the US or for Softbank. Not sure where the rest went (Son/Softbank had already done the ARM deal prior).


And of course Trump has already done a $100B "deal" with Son already.


But from what I can tell, there's no accountability as to whether the investment has actually happened and how those investments have performed. Should be interesting.

You mentioned an important word "accountability". From Google, Meta/Facebook, Telsa, to OpenAI, the founders or certain insiders hold special voting power and other influence or privileges that allow them to do bad things and face no serious consequence.
 
Nvidia has the same concern, right? Hopefully CC Wei and Jensen talked about this at dinner last week.

Personally I think AI infrastructure is a bubble until AI hits the edge and is productized on a massive scale. Chat Bots will not fund the big AI build.

Yes, Nvidia likely shares similar concerns, but TSMC faces a much greater risk due to the heavy capital expenditures required for building fabs. In a worst case scenario, Nvidia can cut costs by laying off engineers and sales staff to weather the storm. However, TSMC cannot simply dismantle or repurpose those incredibly expensive fabs.
 
OpenAI, SoftBank, and others are pursuing this with the goal of achieving AGI. However, as I mentioned earlier, achieving AGI may require a much longer timeline—potentially decades—unless they lower the bar for what qualifies as AGI, whatever that may mean.

As for OpenAI, the current service model (at $200 per month for a subscription) is not profitable. With projects like Stargate, I’m not sure how investors plan to recoup their investments.
 

Elon Musk bashes the $500 billion AI project Trump announced, claiming its backers don’t ‘have the mone​

ab255141b0492ece9f5c4d7e29e136dc


Elon Musk bashes the $500 billion AI project Trump announced, claiming its backers don’t ‘have the money’
Shortly after President Donald Trump announced a new massive AI infrastructure investment from the White House, “First Buddy” Elon Musk tried to tear it down.

“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
Trump said the investment will create a new company, called Stargate, to grow artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. The leaders of SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle stood alongside Trump during the announcement. Their respective companies will invest $100 billion in total for the project to start, with plans to pour up to $500 billion into Stargate in the coming years.

The comments are a notable takedown of a major White House project from someone that is in Trump’s innermost circle. As a sign of how involved Musk is in the first days of the administration, Musk said he was in the Oval Office on Tuesday as Trump signed a pardon for Ross William Ulbricht, founder of the dark web marketplace SilkRoad. Musk had also dispatched a top staffer from his SpaceX and X companies to help ensure the release of convicted January 6 rioters after Trump signed a blanket pardon.

But perhaps it should not be a surprise that Musk is going after an OpenAI initiative. Musk is in an ongoing lawsuit with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, who was at the White House for the announcement. Musk, who has said he “doesn’t trust” Altman, claims in the lawsuit the ChatGPT has abandoned its original nonprofit mission by reserving some of its most advanced AI technology for private customers.

The companies involved in Stargate have not publicly disclosed how they will contribute the funds, but they don’t necessarily need the money in the bank to support it — they could raise debt or sign on other equity investors.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday rebuffed Musk’s comments, saying in a Fox News interview, “the American people should take President Trump and those CEOs’ words for it.”

“President Trump is very excited about this infrastructure announcement in the field of AI, which is obviously growing, and something the United States of America needs to capitalize on, because our adversaries, such as China, are very advanced in this field,” Leavitt said. “So, the American people should take President Trump and those CEOs’ words for it -– these investments are coming to our great country, and American jobs are coming along with them.”

Altman replied directly to Musk’s claim on X, writing “wrong, as you surely know. 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 (America) first.”

A source familiar with Stargate said Musk’s assertion is not true.

Softbank, the source pointed out, has $24.3 billion of cash on its balance sheet per its latest earnings and that it is comfortable taking on more debt to help fund the project, the wherewithal to access more capital.

The source pointed out that MGX has $100 billion in capital commitments, Oracle has $11 billion in cash on its balance sheet and OpenAI recently announced it has more than $10 billion from its recent round of venture capital.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, which is working with OpenAI on Stargate, said on CNBC Wednesday “all I know is I’m good for my $80 billion.”


Donny know its a remake of the movie?

1000031869.jpg
 
Yes, Nvidia likely shares similar concerns, but TSMC faces a much greater risk due to the heavy capital expenditures required for building fabs. In a worst case scenario, Nvidia can cut costs by laying off engineers and sales staff to weather the storm. However, TSMC cannot simply dismantle or repurpose those incredibly expensive fabs.
Fabs can go dark. Like they did during the pandemic. Nvidia prepays, Governments prepay, money in more available for fabs today than the past. TSMC has no competition, they will be fine.
 
I wonder how Masayoshi Son explained his WeWork losses to his investors. He sold off his position in Nvidia at that time and invested heavily in WeWork.

500 billion or even 100 billion is not a small number. Investors should conduct serious due diligence as they are the group to incur significant potential losses.
 
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