Musk, Altman Clash Over Trump's Stargate
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Olga Brende there, wrapping it up, the president and CEO of the World Economic Forum, having just spoken with United States President Donald Trump as he addressed Davos,

And just to run through some of the key focuses, of course, his election win was where he focused initially. And then tackling crime, immigration, energy, inflation, whether it's looking at energy deregulation, even talking about powering AI in the U.S. with coal, tackling trade policies, deficits, relationships. He spanned China, Asia, Canada, the EU, singling out some of the legal action being taken by the EU against some of

the big tech companies here in the United States. Of course, Meta, Google, Apple being singled out there. Concerns about the Russia and Ukraine war once again focused on, and in fact, a view that oil prices need to come down to be able to ensure peace there. And calling on Saudi Arabia to up its investment in the United States to a trillion dollars, but also calling on Saudi Arabia and OPEC to reduce energy prices and oil prices more broadly. And then going on to tackle the relationship, the future focus of China. Let's

Let's wrap it up with Bloomberg's Lisa Abramowitz, who is out in Davos. What was it like to be there? What did you think about the statements and questions being made as well?

Well, I will just say, Caroline, and thank you so much for having me, that the line outside of the Congress Center where he was going to be broadcast was the longest I have ever seen in my years coming to Davos. There were people standing there for an hour ahead of time for the chance to be in that room, which gives you a sense at a time, the last day when a lot of people are already gone, of how important people thought this would be to listen to. I will say the fact

that he did take the time to message into Davos was very interesting in terms of an international outreach. In terms of the main takeaways, for me, at least with respect to your question about what the main questions here were, number one, he wants lower oil prices and he is going to ask...

Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia for a trillion dollar investment in the United States. He wants OPEC to lower their prices and he wants to quickly remove some of the constraints around regulations and permitting for energy projects. Number two, he wants lower interest rates. He wants lower interest rates for the United States and around the world, really trying to make that a priority. I thought that was very interesting. And then of

course the tip for tat but very much negotiation was very interesting he had a much more constructive tone toward China towards Xi Jinping then potentially in the past I will just say that it was notable to me his comments to Brian Moynihan of Bank of America

saying open your bank for business to conservatives and saying, Jamie, over there, JP Morgan, you too. It just shows sort of the overhang and the reason why DEI, ESG, not relevant at this particular Davos. At the same time that there is some of the initiatives sort of speak to those same issues, but very much in economic terms. Either way, Caroline, a really interesting speech to cap four days of really intense economic conversations here at Davos.

Lisa, a question for you about the attendees and the mood in the room. You've spoken to a number of them during your time there ahead of the speech. Was the president's message and his responses to the questions enough to satisfy what they wanted to know going into it?

Well, I think that there still is a lot of uncertainty of exactly how they're going to strip away regulations, how quickly they're going to get permitting. I thought that Steve Schwartzman's question was really interesting and speaks to how much European leaders here at Davos have been talking about what they can do to

emulate some of what Donald Trump is talking about here in Europe. So I think that these all address the issues. I don't know that it gets into the nitty gritty because a lot of people want to see where are the tariffs? What's negotiation? What's reality? That wasn't going to be answered in a speech today. But the fact that he messaged in was interesting in and of itself, basically saying he still wants to do business with the rest of the world. He still thinks the rest of the world is going to be doing well. And then I

was interesting given the fact that some people were saying maybe he doesn't even care about doing business elsewhere. Lisa Abramowitz from Davos, we thank you so much for coming late and wrapping up.

key speech from the President of the United States. It's notable that in that speech he referenced artificial intelligence, wanting to be the world capital for it, and indeed thinking about how you're going to provide energy, even turning to coal. Look, this is on the back of that enormous $100 billion, up to $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure, as was announced by, of course, Larry Ellison. We had Masayoshi Son and indeed Sam Altman. Now, on the back of that, Elon Musk and OpenAI's Sam Altman are actually feuding about

whether the money is really real for Stargate. Let's bring in Max Chafkin, who knows a thing or two about this feud, and it's going on online.

Yeah, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, of course, co-founders of OpenAI back when it was a nonprofit. Elon Musk and Sam Altman are now locked in a lawsuit over that beginning and are competitors. The thing we saw starting yesterday is Elon Musk going on Twitter and essentially saying that this big announcement, this, you know, day three of the Trump presidency, this big plan to create $100 billion or even $500 billion worldwide,

worth of AI infrastructure is not true. He called the news fake. He said that Sam Altman is a quote, swindler. And then he posted a series of messages suggesting that Altman was like secretly some sort of liberal at a time when Altman has been attempting to have sort of a Trumpy evolution. Really unusual in the sense that normally you don't see the criticism of the big White House announcement coming from inside the White House. And that's what we're seeing right now.

Max, if you're a CEO going in to meet with Donald Trump to talk about business the way he just invited them to do at Davos, what are you thinking after seeing this spat unfold?

I mean, I think that Altman and Masayoshi Son and all of these guys are doing their best to give Trump what he wants, which is these big moments, these press conferences, a lot of flattery. And so that's what they're doing. I don't think that's going to change that much.

Max Chafkin wrapping up very quickly what is an ongoing feud online and we'll have him back to talk about a little bit more. But that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. Do not forget to check out our podcast. You can find it on the terminal as well as on Apple, Spotify and iHeart. From New York, from Washington, from Davos, this is Bloomberg Technology.

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