The completely unproven and unreliable AI sector says it’s going to build $500 billion worth of data centers with Trump’s blessing, and with AI safeguards now repealed, that’s a lot of deepfake porn to produce. But Elon Musk is mad that he’s not in on the action.Despite how artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology that still can’t always get the simplest things right, investors are still throwing ungodly amounts of money at the goal of making sure it eventually dominates every aspect of our lives. New president Donald Trump is promising fewer restrictions on the technology, so tech industry leaders determined to “pivot to AI” have become Trump suck-ups across the board. And now we see the most conspicuous manifestation of this yet, as The Verge reports that Sam Altman, Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son joined Trump on Tuesday to announce a $500 million AI data center project called Stargate.Announcing The Stargate ProjectThe Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately. This infrastructure will secure…— OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 21, 2025 What in the Richard Dean Anderson is this Stargate thing? A tweet from OpenAI says the project will “invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States.” The tweet adds it will “create hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” even if the AI executives are determined that their technology will eliminate countless American jobs. And the $500 billion has all been promised from the private sector, so they’re currently selling this as not needing taxpayer money, but we’ll see if these tech executives come begging for another bailout again. SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2025 But upon seeing Elon Musk rival Sam Altman getting center stage next to Trump, Musk immediately soured on this project. After all, Musk runs in OpenAI competitor in Grok. “They don’t actually have the money,” Musk pouted on Twitter. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”But Altman is making great strides in cozying up to Trump, and his (massively unprofitable) company OpenAI may already be benefiting.The Associated Press reports that also on Tuesday, Trump repealed Biden’s executive orders on AI safety. It’s unclear if Trump will replace these orders with anything of his own, or if he just likes repealing Biden’s accomplishments — we can probably count on it mostly being the latter. Biden’s now-repealed orders required AI companies to share details with the government about how their systems work before releasing them to the public. AI investor Marc Andreessen has complained that these rules “deliberately hamstring ourselves through onerous regulations while the rest of the world lights up on this, and while China lights up on this.”So it’s probably open season for deepfake porn technology, algorithms that make sure you pay more for everything, and all these other AI side effects that that no one ever asked for but may soon be forced on our everyday lives. And who knows, maybe AI will eventually get smart enough that it stops making so many obvious mistakes. Considering the amount of water and fossil fuel energy these AI data centers will require, hopefully it can get smart enough to solve that problem soon, too.Related: OpenAI Raises All-Time Record Largest VC Round Ever, But Still Hemorrhaging Money Like Mad [SFist]Image: WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 21: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (R), accompanied by U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump announced an investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and took questions on a range of topics including his presidential pardons of Jan. 6 defendants, the war in Ukraine, cryptocurrencies and other topics. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)