The Unraveling of OpenAI and Microsoft's Bromance

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, Business News, News

4.2 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Some of the world’s most prominent names in technology are pledging billions to build artificial-intelligence infrastructure in the U.S. in a joint venture called Stargate. Notably missing? Microsoft. WSJ’s Tom Dotan explains how the partnership that launched the AI boom has deteriorated. Further Reading: - Tech Leaders Pledge up to $500 Billion in AI Investment in U.S. - OpenAI’s Stargate Deal Heralds Shift Away From Microsoft - Musk Pours Cold Water on Trump-Backed Stargate AI Project Further Listening: - Artificial: The OpenAI Story - What's the Worst AI Can Do? This Team Is Finding Out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	At the White House last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was part of a big announcement.
0:12.3	His event at the White House was alongside the leaders of three leading artificial intelligence companies that are committing billions into a joint venture called Stargate.
0:20.8	Stargate will build data centers and help generate electricity to support AI.
0:25.3	A $500 billion private venture to focus on AI.
0:32.0	Alongside Altman, there was President Donald Trump and two other CEOs, one from the database software company Oracle,
0:40.9	and the other from tech investor SoftBank.
0:45.2	What stood out to you about the presser?
0:48.9	This was clearly a big deal for all the involved people.
0:52.6	The image of all these guys in the White House talking about this
0:56.7	and the enormous amounts of money that they were planning to raise and deploy in service
1:01.2	of this project, I don't know, it was a whole to do.
1:04.9	That's our colleague Tom Doton.
1:07.9	Tom said there was another thing that stood out.
1:14.4	One major player who wasn't part of the show.
1:20.6	Not pictured, not up there talking in front of the press was Microsoft and the CEO Satchitadella was thousands of miles away in Davos for the World Economic Forum. And why is that interesting that he wasn't there?
1:29.7	Microsoft is the sugar daddy of, so to speak, of OpenAI.
1:35.8	They have poured more money by a huge margin than anyone else into this company.
1:41.1	And Sam Altman appears at almost every Microsoft event. Anytime they're rolling out a
1:47.1	giant new piece of software that involves OpenAI's products in there, or they just generally
1:51.8	have a big event, Sam and Satya will usually be there on stage. To go from that to one of the biggest
1:58.1	announcements in OpenAI's history, and Satya Nadella is not there,
2:02.2	is like pretty striking.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Wall Street Journal, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Wall Street Journal and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.