‘Does It Bother You?’ Trump Asked Twice About Elon Musk Shading His AI Investment Announcement
President Donald Trump took questions from White House reporters on Thursday following signing a series of executive orders, including declassifying documents related to the JFK assassination.
“Mr. President, related to your AI EO, just hours after you made that big Stargate announcement, Elon Musk tweeted that they don’t actually have the money. Is that true?” asked one reporter.
“I don’t know if they do, but you know, they’re putting up the money. The government’s not putting up anything. They’re putting up money. They’re very rich people, so I hope they do. I mean, Elon doesn’t like one of those people,” Trump replied, referring to Musk’s strong dislike for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Earlier in the week, Trump held a press conference with Altman, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, during which they announced a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure.
OpenAI posted the announcement on X, writing in part, “We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately. This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world. This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.”
Musk, who has also been jabbing Altman on X, replied, “They don’t actually have the money.” The post quickly made headlines as critics and observers suggested the tweet undercut the president.
Another reporter followed up asking if is AI “going to replace many American jobs?”
Trump replied, “It’s going to create tremendous numbers of jobs. It’s going to also create a lot of benefits, medically, for cancer research and other things. It’s going to to have a huge positive effect. And you know, we want to be ahead of China. We’re right now, way ahead of China. David Sacks is one of the old time experts. You know that people are amazed that he you just met him. I don’t know if he said here, but, but one of the most respected people in that world. It’s a world. It’s a whole different world, and we’re ahead of China now because of what I’m doing, and I think it’s going to be very successful.”
At another point during the exchange, a different reporter asked, “Does it bother you that Elon Musk criticized a deal that you made publicly, that he said that– he tweeted that?”
“No, he hates one of the people in the deal,” Trump replied.
Watch the clip above.
