From Musk to Nadella: Trump’s $500 billion AI project stirs drama among the biggest names in tech

PUBLISHED THU, JAN 23 20259:45

KEY POINTS

• President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a joint venture with OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank to invest billions of dollars aimed at ramping up U.S. AI infrastructure.

• SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison committed to invest an initial $100 billion and up to $500 billion over the next four years.

• Now Tesla’s Elon Musk, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella have weighed in.

Some of the biggest names in technology — from Elon Musk and Sam Altman to Satya Nadella and Marc Benioff — are clashing after President Donald Trump unveiled his $500 billion private AI investment project.

Musk has yet to stop his war of words, with the Tesla CEO taking to X to rip Altman over OpenAI’s partnership with Axios and his previous support for venture capitalist Reid Hoffman’s past efforts to oppose Trump.

Altman, who joined Trump on stage to announce the artificial intelligence push, posted Thursday morning without tagging Musk directly: “just one more mean tweet and then maybe you’ll love yourself.”

Earlier this week, Trump announced a joint venture called Stargate with OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank to invest billions of dollars in ramping up domestic computing capacity to boost AI development in the United States.

The executives committed to invest an initial $100 billion and up to $500 billion over the next four years.

However, Musk — a close ally to Trump and himself a key figure in AI with his startup xAI — claimed in a post on his X social media platform that the companies involved in the project “don’t actually have the money” to fund the investment.

“SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority,” Musk added in a subsequent post. Altman, replying to Musk’s allegation, said Wednesday, “Wrong, as you surely know.”

The Stargate Project was unveiled at the White House on Tuesday by Trump, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Son will be the chairman of Stargate, while semiconductor company Arm, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle and OpenAI will serve as key initial technology partners.

Musk chairs the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a major White House government efficiency effort. He was Trump’s biggest financial backer by far in the 2024 election.

Possible Microsoft-OpenAI rift emerging

On Wednesday, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff suggested the investment plan could create tensions between OpenAI and Microsoft, who are close partners.

OpenAI said Tuesday that it had ended an arrangement with Microsoft to serve as its exclusive cloud provider. The change in relationship was disclosed as part of the Stargate Project announcement.

“I think it’s extremely important that OpenAI gets to other platforms quickly because Microsoft is building their own AI,” Benioff told CNBC. “I don’t think that Microsoft will use OpenAI in the future, they’ll have their own frontier models.”

“They’ve said it very clearly that it’s too expensive and too hard for them, and that they want to have their own,” the Salesforce chief added. “That’s why they hired Mustafa Suleyman [as Microsoft AI CEO] — and Mustafa Suleyman and Sam Altman are not best friends.”

Microsoft last year appointed Suleyman, a co-founder of Google’s AI lab DeepMind, to lead its new AI division.

Microsoft is the single largest investor in OpenAI, having plowed billions of dollars of investment into the firm. It also offers OpenAI models on its Azure cloud platform as part of a commercial arrangement between the two firms.

‘I’m good for my $80 billion’

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addressed concerns surrounding the tech giant’s relationship with OpenAI Wednesday, saying that the two continue to share a “critical partnership.”…

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/23/from-musk-to-nadella-tech-ceos-spar-over-trumps-stargate-ai-project.html

>>22422173

Good they are fighting, they will never get it done, and especially when Congress and Senate get a hold of this shitstorm of Big Brother.

Well at least Trump playing dumb found out what they were planning. Remember David Sacks is his AI czar, and he's been a full fledge Republican all his life. He is a true supporter of Trump, and he will not fuck with Trump. Plus Sacks and Elon have been friends for many years.

Exposing the DS in Tech, especially Altman and Google, and all the other guys that hate Trump

it's been freakin cold in GA for a week or more, lowest temp 12, but with humidity.

>>22421350 Rep. Andy Ogles is proposing a constitutional amendment to allow President Trump to seek a third termPN

It will never go through, but I love that Republicans are learning to troll the democrats

President Donald Trump says he’ll ‘demand that interest rates drop immediately’

PUBLISHED THU, JAN 23 202511:20

President Donald Trump lobbed his first volley at the Federal Reserve, saying Thursday that he will apply pressure to bring down interest rates.

Speaking via video to an assembly of global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the new president in a wide-ranging policy speech did not mention the Fed by name but made clear he would seek lower rates.

“I’ll demand that interest rates drop immediately,” Trump said. “And likewise, they should be dropping all over the world. Interest rates should follow us all over.”

The comments represented an initial strike at Fed officials, with whom he had a highly contentious relationship during his first term in office. He frequently criticized Chair Jerome Powell,who Trump appointed, on occasion calling policymakers “boneheads” and comparing Powell to a golfer who can’t putt.

Stocks reacted slightly positive on the comments, with the Dow Jones Industrial average extending gains as Trump spoke and the policy-sensitive 2-year Treasury yield edging a bit lower.

In the flurry of activity surrounding the president’s first week in office, he has not discussed his views on monetary policy. However, during the presidential campaign Trump indicated that he should get a say in interest rate decisions.

Speaking later in the day to reporters, Trump said he expects the Fed to listen to him and plans to speak to Powell “at the right time.”

For their part, Powell and his colleagues have emphasized the importance of Fed independence. Powell in particular frequently has insisted the central bank does not make decisions based on political considerations. Trump does not have statutory authority over the Fed, though he nominates members to the board of governors.

U.S. 2 Year Treasury

US2Y:Tradeweb

2-year yield

Fed independence is seen as essential to stable markets, though the central bank has come under fire in recent years for dismissing the inflation surge in 2021 as “transitory,” which led to a series of aggressive hikes.

Trump’s comments come less than a week before the Fed holds is two-day policy meeting that will conclude Wednesday.

Markets are assigning virtually no chance that the Fed will lower further its benchmark borrowing rate, which currently is targeted in a range between 4.25%-4.5% following a full percentage point of cuts in the last four months of 2024. Traders are pricing in a first rate reduction likely coming in June and about a 50-50 probability of another move before the end of the year, according to CME Group data.

The Fed cut its funds rate after hiking it 5.25 percentage points in its efforts to battle inflation. Though inflation is still running above the central bank’s 2% mandate, officials have said policy does not need to be as restrictive as they see the pace of price increases moderating.

Trump blamed the inflation surge under former President Joe Biden on “wasteful deficit spending.”

“The result is the worst inflation crisis in modern history, and sky-high interest rates for our citizens and even throughout the world. Food prices and the price of almost every other thing known to mankind went through the roof,” he said.

A Fed official declined comment on Trump’s remarks.

KEKI love this truth fest, others don't really.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/23/president-donald-trump-says-hell-demand-that-interest-rates-drop-immediately.html

Citizen Free Press

@CitizenFreePres

JAMIE DIMON – TARIFFS ARE GOOD FOR NATIONAL SECURITY.

From JM Rieger

7:10 PM · Jan 23, 2025

·12.1K Views

Anons can you imagine being around Trump and working with him is like daily, I can? He's like Mercury at light speedhe had four years to think about all of this.

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1882581588212604949

video attached

>>22422387

So he finally admits Tariffs are not bad if used correctly. He finally admits what he knew all along

Argentina’s Milei says ‘woke’ global left is starting to crumble

A “global hegemony” of left-wing politics and ideology is “starting to crumble,” Argentina’s firebrand President Javier Milei told the World Economic Forum on Thursday.

“What once seemed like a global hegemony of the ‘woke’ left in politics, educational institutions, in the media, in supranational organizationsor even in forums like Davos, has begun to crumble,” right-wing leader Milei, who took office in 2023, told business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

The divisive ‘woke’ term typically refers to supporting social justice issues and political activism.

The Argentinian politician, who casts himself in a similar vein to U.S. President Donald Trump, said he had been forming alliances with other like-minded figures and leaders.

“Over the course of this year, I have found allies in this fight for the cause of freedom in every corner of the world, from the amazing [tech billionaire] Elon Musk to that fierce Italian lady [Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni, from [President Nayib] Bukele in El Salvador to Viktor Orban in Hungary,” he said, also namedropping Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump among his allies.

“Slowly, an international alliance has been forming among all those nations who want to be free and believe in the ideas of liberty,” he said.

— Holly Ellyatt

Running thread at this linkTrump is mentioned quite a lot.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/23/wef-live-blog-whats-going-on-in-davos-on-thursday-january-23-2025.html#108091220-post

14 HOURS AGO

We ignore the causes of protectionist shifts at our peril, OECD head says

Institutions such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, need to ask themselveswhy many countries are shifting toward protectionism, the head of theParis-basedgroup told CNBC on Thursday.

“It’s in nobody’s interest to have a trade war… as an organization we’re very much in favor of open markets and the sustainable expansion of global trade withina rules-based trading system,” (that's code for no rules for others and it changes all the time. He's not being magnanimous, he's trying to continue the Scam), Mathias Cormansaid.

“But we need to ask ourselves the question as to why some of these measures are now being taken, andwhy we have seen over the last 15 years or so, increasing instances of protectionism.”

Cormann continued, “It is true that globalization hasn’t worked as well as it could have and should have for everyone.”

“We understand that there are real issues that need to be addressed, and we ignore them at our peril.”

The OECD chief also noted that it was early days for the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump — who is threatening widespread global tariffs — and that it remained to be seen how “issues are ultimately worked through.”

(He never talks about the workers of each country that gets screwed, any France centered money firm doesn't believe in "Les Miserable", its always the rich that benefit from globalism)

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/23/wef-live-blog-whats-going-on-in-davos-on-thursday-january-23-2025.html#108091220-post

OMG this is so funny reading all the responses from every country at DAVOS. It's practically all the losers against America and Trump trying to get allies

15 HOURS AGO

BBVA chair: ‘Mexico will be a winner’ regardless of spat with U.S.

“Mexico will be a winner” regardless of the challenges thrown up by the new U.S. administration, according to the chair of Spanish multinational lender BBVA

Carlos Torres Vila, BBVA

chairman, said the Latin American country has structural economic advantages that will set it apart despite the threat of trade tariffs by President Donald Trump.

“There is always uncertainty, but Mexico is a clear winner of what’s going on because of the structural advantages of Mexico,” Torres Vila told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” at Davos.“Its labor costs are a fraction of the U.S, and that’s a structural factor.

He also pointed to the country’s size, its demographic advantage of having a largely young population, and its geographical proximity to the United States as competitive advantages.

“No matter what happens with trade, immigration, drugs, etc — which are all topics that need to be resolved — Mexico will be a winner,” he added.

Earlier this week, Trump said that tariffs could be levied against Mexico and Canada as soon as early February.

“We’re thinking in terms of 25% [levies] on Mexico and Canada, because they’re allowing a vast number of people” over the border, Trump said. The president called Canada “a very bad abuser” and said a target date for the tariffs would be, “I think Feb. 1.”

— Ganesh Rao

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/23/wef-live-blog-whats-going-on-in-davos-on-thursday-january-23-2025.html#108091220-post

I really love the fact that they reveal to Trump what their advantages areHave they thought about: "What if they try to get an American or other country Architect to design and build more manufacturing plants? If the Americans do this they will never get a contract for the rest of their lives in America.

And what if many companies move and build plants here to save tariffs and no one can build out Mexico.

I really don't think MX thought those statements through.

Why reveal to Trump what you think are your advantages. And they are admitting they will still allow illegals in the US.

Bold but not Savvy, they really don't understand our President; we can do it the easy way or the hard way, whats your choice?

Exclusive | Some Walmart Managers Get a Raise, Lifting Their Max Pay to $600,000

Jan. 23, 2025 7:26 am

Walmart says it has been paying its store-level staff and managers more in recent years to keep turnover low.

Walmart is boosting what it pays regional store managers this year, enabling the top performers to take home more than $600,000.

The retail giant recently told these supervisors about increased bonus and stock awards, changes that reflect how their jobs of running a collection of stores have become more critical to the company’s success.

At the same time, Walmart is pulling back on perks for office-based staff such as gradually ending remote work, cutting some pay and shifting workers to the same health-insurance plans offered to most store staff.

The moves show how the country’s largest private employer is managing its labor costs and priorities. Employers face competition to fill leadership roles at retailers and restaurants, while some white-collar jobs are drying up.

After the changes kick in, regional managers responsible for clusters of a dozen Walmart stores—a role known as a market manager—will be able to earn between $420,000 and $620,000 if they get their full bonuses this year. That total is up from a range of roughly $320,000 to $570,000 last year.

Stock grants for market managers will increase to $100,000 a year, up from $75,000, while potential annual bonuses will rise to 100% of base pay, up from 90%, a Walmart spokeswoman said.

Minimum base pay will increase to $160,000 a year, up from $130,000. The maximum a market manager can earn in base pay will stay at $260,000 a year.

Many companies have cut midlevel manager roles in the name of efficiency and savings. Amazon (.com) Chief Executive Andy Jassy is aiming to increase the ratio of workers to managers. Google CEO Sundar Pichai told staff in December that the company had culled managerial roles by 10% in its cost-cutting drive.

Walmart’s changes show that its midlevel-management jobs are still key. A market manager plays a hands-on role in running around a dozen massive stores that often employ around 300 workers apiece. The job involves long hours and many miles on the road visiting stores to check-in on staff and merchandise.

Walmart employs around 440 market managers in the U.S. that oversee around 4,600 stores.

The company has been paying its store-level staff and managers more in recent years to keep turnover low and attract top talent, executives have said. Last year, Walmart added an annual bonus for hourly store workers and increased compensation for individual store managers so that top performers can earn more than $400,000 a year. Giving market managers who oversee those store managers a raise is the next step, the Walmart spokeswoman said.

At the same time, Walmart has cut perks for rank-and-file office staff. Recently some corporate employees who work in offices outside of the Bentonville, Ark., headquarters were told their healthcare coverage will become less generous next year, according to people familiar with the situation.

The new plan options include higher deductibles. One of the new plans will require a $5,500 annual deductible for a worker and their family, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The change will affect less than 1% of corporate staff and take effect in 2026, a spokeswoman said. The legacy plans were the result of acquisitions, she said, and the change will bring greater parity to medical plans for all workers.

Two years ago, Walmart started the process of reducing total compensation for some staff in offices outside its headquarters, as part of a reorganization of titles and pay bands.

Last year, it ended remote work and asked many employees to relocate to Bentonville or offices in major cities, which resulted in some people leaving.

Write to Sarah Nassauer at Sarah.Nassauer@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications

One of Walmart’s health plans has an annual deductible of $5,500 for a worker and their family. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was $13,700, which is the plan’s maximum annual out-of-pocket payment. (Corrected on Jan. 23)

https://archive.is/NENu9

Do anons believe this?