"Elon Musk Furious Over OpenAI's Deal with UAE"
Attempts to Block Data Center Project Unless xAI Is Included
Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tesla, attempted to obstruct OpenAI's data center construction project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to a report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 28th (local time).
Sources stated that CEO Musk warned executives at G42, the UAE company involved in the data center project, during a phone call that President Donald Trump of the United States would not approve the project unless his artificial intelligence (AI) company xAI was included in it.
Previously, on the 22nd, OpenAI announced that it had entered into a partnership with G42, an AI company backed by the UAE sovereign wealth fund, to build a 5GW (gigawatt) data center cluster in Abu Dhabi. If the WSJ report is accurate, the deal was finalized despite CEO Musk's attempts to interfere.
According to the WSJ, CEO Musk became extremely upset after learning that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman would accompany President Trump on his Middle East tour and that a major deal was underway in the UAE just before the trip. CEO Musk insisted on joining the tour himself and eventually became part of the delegation.
White House officials revealed that CEO Musk did not want CEO Altman to benefit from any such deal. One official stated that President Trump and David Sacks, the White House's chief policy advisor on AI and cryptocurrency, wanted to announce the agreement for this project before the President's Middle East trip concluded, so staff discussed ways to calm CEO Musk.
CEO Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 along with CEO Altman and others, but later left the company after their relationship deteriorated. Since then, CEO Musk has publicly criticized CEO Altman, and after OpenAI gained significant attention with the launch of ChatGPT, he founded xAI. The WSJ reported that xAI was considered a leading candidate to lead the Abu Dhabi data center cluster.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
