Tech titan Elon Musk cast doubt Wednesday on a $500 billion AI project announced by US President Donald Trump, saying the money promised for the investment actually wasn't there.
The comments marked a rare instance of a split between the world's richest man and Trump, with Musk playing a key role in the newly installed administration after spending $270 million on the election campaign.
In his first full day in the White House, Trump on Tuesday announced a major investment to build infrastructure for artificial intelligence led by Japanese giant SoftBank and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.
Trump said the venture, called Stargate, "will invest $500 billion, at least, in AI infrastructure in the United States."
But in a post on his social media platform X, Musk said the main investors "don't actually have the money."
"SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority," Musk added in a subsequent post.
- 'Wrong' -
Musk's swipe could be particularly targeted at OpenAI, the world's leading AI startup that Musk helped found before leaving in 2018.
The Tesla boss and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, who was present at the White House on Tuesday, have been mired in a serious feud with Musk opening repeated lawsuits against the company behind ChatGPT.
"Wrong, as you surely know. Want to come visit the first site already under way?" Altman replied to Musk on X.
"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 (country) first," he added.
OpenAI is one of the world's highest valued startups but loses money on the high costs of turning out its expensive technology.
According to the Wall Street Journal, cloud giant Oracle, which is also involved, has about $11 billion in cash and securities. SoftBank has roughly $30 billion of cash on hand.
"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," Trump's spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News.
The Stargate project is committed to invest an initial $100 billion in the project, and up to $500 billion over the next four years.
Abu Dhabi's AI-focused state fund MGX and Oracle are also providing funding for the project, while SoftBank-owned Arm, Microsoft and Nvidia will be technology partners.
According to the companies, the project is initially building a data center operation in Texas, where construction is already underway.
Ahead of taking office, Trump this month unveiled a $20 billion Emirati investment in US data centers, as well as a previous investment pledge from SoftBank.
- 'Immediately' -
SoftBank, headed by flamboyant Japanese tycoon Masayoshi Son -- who announced Stargate on Tuesday with Trump, Altman and Oracle boss Larry Ellison -- declined to comment.
In its statement on Tuesday the Japanese investment group said it would "begin deploying $100 billion immediately" for the project.
The firm's shares were up around six percent on Thursday, having added more than 10 percent on Wednesday.
Technology news outlet Information said that SoftBank and OpenAI each plan to commit $19 billion of capital to Stargate, Bloomberg News reported.
The two companies would then both own 40 percent of it, the Information said, citing comments by Altman to colleagues.
It added that Oracle and MGX would contribute about $7 billion apiece, with the rest of the money coming from limited partners and debt financing.
Son, 67, founded SoftBank in his 20s. He made spectacularly successful early bets on Yahoo! and Alibaba but also some disastrous investments such as in WeWork.
In Trump's first term the rags-to-riches investor promised SoftBank would invest $50 billion in the United States and create 50,000 jobs.
Appearing alongside the then US president-elect in December, Son said he would now "double down" with $100 billion and generate employment for 100,000 Americans.
'Bitcoin Jesus'
Elon Musk said Tuesday he was exploring a presidential pardon for "Bitcoin Jesus," who was arrested last year on fraud and tax evasion charges, after applauding Donald Trump for exonerating the founder of a dark web drug marketplace.
In a sign of the tech billionaire's influence over the new US administration, Musk said he was "honored to be in the Oval Office" when Trump granted a pardon to Ross Ulbricht, the man behind the "Silk Road" platform that facilitated the sale of illegal narcotics using cryptocurrency.
Ulbricht, operating under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts," was sentenced to two life terms in prison after being convicted of charges including conspiracy to distribute narcotics, money laundering and computer hacking.
The FBI described Silk Road as a "digital bazaar for illegal goods and services" that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, as well as commissions in bitcoin.
Prosecutors also alleged that Ulbricht solicited six murders-for-hire.
Trump on Tuesday said he called Ulbricht's mother to inform her that he had granted him an unconditional pardon, honoring a pledge he made during last year's presidential campaign, while slamming the "scum" who prosecuted him.
Musk, a confidant of Trump, hinted that Roger Ver, a former California resident who calls himself "Bitcoin Jesus," could be next.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX wrote on his platform X that pardoning him was up to Trump, but he had "asked whether this is possible."
The Bitcoin investor and promoter was arrested in Spain last April based on US criminal charges including fraud and evading capital gains taxes.
The Department of Justice's indictment claimed that Ver -- who had renounced his US citizenship and became a citizen of the Caribbean island of St. Kitts -- sold tens of thousands of bitcoins on cryptocurrency exchanges for around $240 million in cash in 2017.
He did not report his gains, losing the US Treasury $48 million in tax money, the indictment said.
The United States has sought Ver's extradition to stand trial in the country.
There was no immediate comment from Trump about Ver.
Trump has courted his conservative base that catapulted him to power by pardoning his supporters and targeting opponents in a shock-and-awe start to his second presidency.
Hours after being sworn in on Monday, Trump granted pardons to more than 1,500 people who stormed the US Capitol in 2021 including those convicted of assaulting police officers.
Musk shares Trump's hard-right politics and put millions of dollars into supporting his presidential campaign.
Trump has tapped Musk to lead an advisory commission aiming to slash federal spending and bureaucracy, which while dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency, or "DOGE," will not be an official US agency.