OpenAI exec responds to Musk and Altman’s Stargate business criticism: We’re at the ‘tip of the iceberg’

OpenAI’s CFO is setting the record straight on where funding for President Donald Trump’s artificial intelligence (AI) project is.

“I’m close to this deal, I’ve been working on it. If I look tired, this deal does it for me. And I feel really good about where we are,” Sarah Friar said in an interview. “Morning with Maria” Interview Thursday from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“I think Elon is a competitor, but I want us to compete for the right things,” she added.

President Trump on Tuesday announced a massive $500 billion infrastructure project called Stargate. Big names, including Softbank, OpenAI and Oracle, plan to join forces to build data centers in the US to further develop artificial intelligence, which holds the promise of increasing productivity through work automation.

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The initial investment is expected to reach $100 billion, and may reach five times this amount. Microsoft, NVIDIA, investor MGX and chip maker Arm are also partners in the project.

But Tesla and SpaceX CEO – and now co-head of the government’s Ministry of Efficiency – Elon Musk has moved on to X To express doubts About OpenAI’s ability to financially support Stargate.

“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk posted on X in response to an OpenAI post promoting Stargate. “SoftBank secured much less than $10 billion. I have that amount on good authority.”

Supporting OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s assertion that Musk is “wrong,” Monk also encouraged Musk to be supportive of Trump’s AI plans despite it. The fractured relationship between Musk and Altman.

“Let’s compete to achieve great outcomes for consumers and businesses. Let’s compete to bring investment and jobs to the United States and also for our allies. And let’s compete to make sure we get the right results from a security perspective as well,” he added. The CFO said Thursday.

“And Elon knows this,” Monk said, “because we are finally at the tip of the iceberg here. We are just scratching the surface of what is coming. This is the age of artificial intelligence. And so, we get caught up in the distractions among ourselves.” “It feels like it’s going to slow down the bigger outcome we’re all looking for.”

A source familiar with Stargate told FOX Business that Stargate is ready to deploy $100 billion immediately, and that companies involved in the project are well-positioned to make the investments.

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In an effort to ease any tensions, Friar said Musk agrees with OpenAI on three core needs of the industry: “amazing people,” computer power and data.

“That’s why focusing on the mission is so important to us, right?” Assume the CFO. “We want to make sure we have access to all of that, and we will continue to run the company in the way we see best to get that outcome.”

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FOX Business’ Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.