Donald Trump held the first press conference of his new presidential term on Tuesday, alongside three billionaires who are beginning a new partnership called Stargate that they say will create wondrous innovations in artificial intelligence. And although they claimed that this new company would invest “up to” $500 billion, many details about the project are not yet clear.
The new business is the brainchild of initial partners who include Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle and OpenAI, according to a statement published on X Tuesday. And three representatives of the new company, Masayoshi Son of Softbank, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle, showed up at the White House to announce the goals with Trump.
The short version? They’re creating this weird coalition of tech companies to build data centers and create new AI infrastructure that will be supported by Trump and the US government. And all of these new investments in AI should lead to tools that will help the average person. This 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 broadcast live on YouTube.
“Together, these global tech giants are announcing the creation of Stargate, so put that name in your books, because I think you’ll be hearing a lot about it in the future,” Trump said in typically exaggerated style. “A new American company that will invest at least $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the United States and very, very quickly… scaling very quickly, almost immediately creating more than 100,000 American jobs.”
Official statements released by the company were a bit more nuanced. The Stargate Project “intends” to invest $500 billion over the next four years in the United States. OpenAI said in a statement posted on. But initial spending will be around $100 billion.
“This infrastructure will ensure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefits for the entire world,” the statement said. “This project will not only support the reindustrialization 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 of this time” and promised that any new investments his company makes will help cure diseases. Altman was actually prompted by Trump to talk about the medical advances that AI is said to understand.
“I hear so many positive things about what this is going to do for medical research and problem solving, cancer and all the different problems. How will AI help us fight against various problems, diseases, etc.? ? » Trump asked Altman.
“I believe that as this technology advances, we will see diseases cured at an unprecedented rate,” Altman responded. “We will be amazed at how quickly we cure this cancer and that, as well as heart disease. And what impact will that have on the ability to provide very high quality health care, on costs. But really, curing diseases at a very rapid rate, I think that’s going to be one of the most important things that this technology can do.
Ellison also highlighted the usefulness of this AI technology for health records, specifically allowing doctors to “understand the conditions of their patients and be able to provide health care plans that are better than they would not be otherwise.
Noticeably absent from the festivities at the White House on Tuesday, Elon Musk, the maybe-Nazi salute billionaire who was instrumental in Trump’s return to the White House. Musk is a terrible enemy of his former business partner Sam Altman, and the two often talk shit online. But Musk responded directly to OpenAI’s X announcement, while writing “They don’t actually have the money” and “SoftBank has secured well under $10 billion.” I have it on good authority. Of course, no one knows if Musk is telling the truth about this.
SoftBank got well less than $10 billion. I have it on good authority.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2025
Where is the Trump-Musk relationship? That’s a good question. But it seems unlikely that this announcement means the two men will not continue working together. Trump needs Musk and Musk needs Trump. And as much as people like to write fanfiction about how they hate each other and “know” their relationship is going to end soon, we’ll believe it when we see it.