Openai Go Go Maga-Atlantic
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At the end of last year, things didn't look good for Openai. The company has been struggling with key talent for its long-awaited GPT-5 and Hemorrhage — notably chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, chief technology officers Mira Murati and Alec Radford, the researcher who brought the company to Get on the company’s path. The first step is to develop GPT. Several people who left joined Openai competitors or launched new ones. The startup's relationship with Microsoft, its largest backer and a key provider of computing infrastructure needed to train and deploy its AI models, is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.
Then there's Elon Musk. He co-founded Openai with Sam Altman and others, but the two have become fierce rivals. As Donald Trump's “first associate,” Musk sued Openai as he quickly built his own AI venture, Xai, where his chatbot Grok has become a core feature. Anne, she plans to sue him; she claims he sexually abused her as a child. (The lawsuit was filed earlier this month; Altman and his family have vehemently denied the allegations through statements posted on X.)
It is therefore quite remarkable that with its latest manipulation, Openai has once again re-established its dominance. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced Project Stargate, a joint venture between SoftBank, Oracle and Openai that will spur $500 billion in private sector investment over four years to build the U.S. AI infrastructure, with the goal of ensuring U.S. leadership in AI development against China. Little is known about how these will work in practice, but it looks like OpenAI's talk will get most of the bang for the buck: In a blog post announcing the partnership, it said all infrastructure will “be used for OpenAI.” The company's president, Greg Brockman, hammered home the point on X: “Openai's $500B AI data center.”
In one fell swoop, the project reduces Openai’s dependence on Microsoft, grants (instead of its competitors) an incredible amount of capital in computer chips (the hottest commodity in the AI race) and Trump’s “U.S. First” ties together the agenda to provide Musk with the best possible shield. (Musk blasted the project yesterday, accusing it of not “actually having the money,” which Altman later denied.) Openai (with Atlantic last year) did not respond to a request for comment.
It's unclear whether Stargate can even cost $500 billion over four years. But consider how shocking this goal is. In the second half of 2023, as Microsoft begins spending approximately $50 billion annually to expand its cloud computing capabilities, a semiconductor analyst has announced That It is “the largest infrastructure construction in human history.” Rene Haas, chief executive of semiconductor company Arm Holdings, said even this rate of expansion across the industry will make the world's computers run out of energy even more by 2030.
The move is a masterful display of Altman's power at work. Altman has demonstrated throughout his career an uncanny ability to get out of the toughest of situations by relying on his network of influencers, tying himself up with strong fundraising and substantial capital. It was for these reasons that Altman successfully orchestrated his return as Openai's CEO in late 2023, after the board briefly ousted him. That's why so many people have expressed shock at the leadership in recent years. This week, he was at it again, standing next to Trump in a sign of unity during the Stargate announcement and later praising him at My opinion on him… I'm not going to agree with him on everything, but I think he's going to be incredible for this country in many ways!”
While Openai has led the charge on the issue, many AI companies have struggled over the past two years to influence policy and grow without government intervention. Silicon Valley has always worked like this, and many other major tech CEOs took their seats next to Trump this week. However, the needs of generative AI are meaningfully different from those of traditional search engines or social media platforms: its development requires more physical infrastructure. Generative – The size of AI models requires data centers to be built on an unprecedented scale. This, in turn, would give Silicon Valley significant influence over the placement of power plants and even water lines across the country. Dramatic data center expansion over the past few years has impacted power reliability for millions of Americans and threatened to raise the cost of drinking water.
The tech industry expertly laid the groundwork for this outcome: it made huge promises about the fantastic potential of its technology while simultaneously creating a sense of danger by evoking China's own technological advances. At the Stargate announcement, Trump said he would do whatever he could to strip away any regulatory hurdles. “China is a competitor, everyone else is a competitor,” he said. “Because we have an emergency, I'm going to help a lot with an emergency declaration. We have to build these things.”
Altman stood on the same podium, emphasizing American leadership. “I'm glad to be doing this in the United States of America,” he said. Then, to acknowledge his new benefactor: “We couldn't do this without you, Mr. President.”