Elon Musk, the ‘first buddy’ to President Donald Trump, controversially went against his leader by claiming the $500 billion AI project the Republican plans on starting up doesn’t ‘actually have the money’.

The 78-year-old has now responded to Musk’s claim about Stargate – ‘the largest AI infrastructure project in history’, which has been backed by seven major companies, and supposedly a half a trillion dollar investment.

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room flanked by Masayoshi Son (2R), Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp, Larry Ellison (2L), Executive Charmain Oracle and Sam Altman (R), CEO of OpenAI (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

But before we get into that, let’s just quickly explain what the project is.

Stargate will see the construction of data centers in the US that will power AI.

The buildout is currently underway in Texas, but other potential sites are being scouted across the country as ‘definitive agreements’ are finalized.

This infrastructure will ‘secure American leadership in AI,’ create ‘hundreds of thousands of American jobs‘ and ‘generate massive economic benefit for the entire world,’ OpenAI – the company behind ChatGPT – claimed on its website.

“This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies,” it continued.

The three key players involved are Oracle CTO Larry Ellison, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.

It was confirmed $100 billion of funding would be made available ‘immediately,’ with $500 billion to be invested in total by 2029.

The US is already a world-leader of artificial intelligence, and it appears Donald Trump is anxious to keep it that way.

“I’m going to help a lot through emergency declarations because we have an emergency,” he said.

Elon Musk has been critical of the AI project (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

So what did Musk tweet?

The tech billionaire has been critical of the project because of a decade-long feud with OpenAI boss Altman, and so took to his social media platform Twitter, to post: “They don’t actually have the money.”

Referring to Stargate, before later adding: “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

While signing a series of executive orders in the Oval Office, Trump was asked about Musk’s criticisms.

When asked whether he was bothered by Musk’s words, Trump replied: “No, he hates one of the people in the deal.”

He added: “People in the deal are very, very smart people. But Elon – one of the people, he happens to hate. But I have certain hatreds of people, too.”

Seven major businesses are involved with the project so far, including three of the world’s biggest technology firms.

Japan’s SoftBank and United Arab Emirates AI investment arm MGX are among Stargate’s initial equity funders, alongside OpenAI and computer giant Oracle.

Meanwhile semiconductor company Arm joins Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle and OpenAI as Stargate’s key technology partners.

Oracle, NVIDIA and OpenAI will ‘closely collaborate to build and operate’ the project’s computing system, while Microsoft will help ‘train leading models and deliver great products and services’.

People have been wondering if Donald Trump’s decision not to put his hand on the Bible while being sworn in has had any impact on his oath of office.

Yesterday (January 20) marked a historical day for the White House as Donald Trump returned to office for the second time, becoming the 47th President of the United States.

The inauguration ceremony in Washington has already caused a stir on social media, as eagle-eyed viewers didn’t skip a beat spotting some seemingly strange moments.

From First Lady Melania Trump‘s excessively large hat which allowed her to ‘dodge’ a kiss from the president to Elon Musk’s thumbs up next to Barron Trump before later being accused of making a ‘Nazi salute’ – something he has denied.

Now, another snippet from the ceremony has gone viral where Trump is being sworn in during his oath of office.

Donald Trump didn’t put hand on Bible during oath

The tradition of swearing on a Bible dates back to George Washington, who actually kissed the scriptures after taking his oath, but as Trump raised his right hand to ‘solemnly swear’ to commit to the position and ‘serve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States’, his left hand strayed away from hovering over the two Bibles his wife held in front of him.

He had a family Bible, given to Trump by his mother, and a Bible used by the 16th President Abraham Lincoln used in his own inauguration in 1861. But apparently, Trump didn’t touch either of them, despite doing so in his first inauguration in 2017.

Many have since been left wondering if Trump’s choice not to touch the holy texts has had any impact on his oath and how the Bible actually factors into the whole affair.

Donald Trump didn’t touch the Bibles next to him while making his oath (MORRY GASH/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Taking to Twitter, an apparent Trump supporter wrote: “Great. Just great. No hand on the Bible.

“Melania tried to get it close to him but Roberts and Trump didn’t notice.

“Now we get four more years of people saying he’s not president, and four more years of people saying he’s the AntiChrist.”

It’s not clear why Trump decided not to put his hand on the Bible.

Does Trump not putting his hand on the Bible have an impact on oath?

Physically touching a Bible is not actually mandatory or a legal requirement – the Constitution simply requires the president take the oath before assuming office, religious text or not.

Speaking to Reuters, Jeremi Suri, a University of Texas history professor and presidential scholar, revealed there is no practical impact if a president declines to swear on a Bible or historical document.

Suri said: “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the president has to connect this to God in any way. The oath is to the Constitution.

“I don’t think it has any bearing on him taking the oath.”

Trump and his wife, Melania, during his swearing in in the US Capitol on Monday (Julia Demaree Nikhinson – Pool/Getty Images)

The academic also added that the Constitution allows any incoming president to either swear or attest, meaning it is ‘open to someone who is an atheist’.

Long-standing tradition

But that hasn’t stopped Trump’s predecessors from following the tradition to a tee, including Joe Biden, who used a Bible that had been in his family since 1893.

In some instances where the Bible was not used, US presidents used other texts: John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, placed his hand on a book of law, while Lyndon B. Johnson used a Catholic prayer missal that was found on the plane that transported John F. Kennedy’s casket after his assassination, reports The New York Times.

Trump has also referenced God during his inaugural address, commenting that he was ‘saved by God’ to ‘make American great again‘.

UNILAD has contacted the White House press secretary for comment.

All the executive orders Donald Trump has signed so far

Policy recognising only ‘two genders’

The president signed an order which will make it an official policy that there are only ‘two genders’.

The policy reads: “Agencies will cease pretending that men can be women and women can be men when enforcing laws that protect against sex discrimination.

“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

The order will also bring to an end ‘wasteful’ government programmes which promote diversity and inclusivity, as well as ‘defending women from gender ideology extremism’.

Free speech

The president accused the previous administration of ‘trampling free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech’ and vowed to restore freedom of speech.

The order states it will ‘ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen’ and will ‘end censorship of protected speech’.

Leaving the World Health Organisation

The president accused the organization of fumbling the COVID-19 pandemic and said the US would no longer be ‘ripped off’ by it.

While signing a document to have the US leave the health agency, Trump said: “World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen anymore.”

TikTok ban

As expected, Trump signed an executive order which hits pause on the US’ ban of the popular app, allowing time for an ‘appropriate course forward’.

“I guess I have a warm spot for TikTok that I didn’t have originally,” he said.

January 6 pardons

Trump’s loss in the 2020 election led to the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in turn resulting in the arrests of a number of Trump supporters.

And as anticipated, the president has wasted no time in issuing pardons for offenders. Trump said he’s pardoned around 1,500 people and issued six commutations.

Immigration

Trump has issued a slew of immigration-related policies during his first day back in the White House as he declared illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border a national emergency.

Trump has already gotten started on reversing several Biden-era immigration orders and has plans to send US troops to help immigration agents and restrict refugees.

The president has also got the wheels in motion to prevent children of immigrants in the US illegally from having citizenship.

Speaking at his inauguration, he said: “All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”

Restoring the death penalty

Calling capital punishment an ‘essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes’, Trump signed an order which will ensure states have enough lethal injection drugs for executions.

“The Attorney General shall pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” the order says.

Renaming the Gulf of Mexico

Following through on his promise during a press conference earlier this month, Trump has now ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be called the Gulf of America.

“President Trump is bringing common sense to government and renewing the pillars of American Civilization,” the executive order said.

Despite the order, it won’t change how it is named globally.

Energy policy

Trump has vowed to ‘unleash American energy’, promising to export US energy globally as he signed the order amid what he describes as a ‘national energy emergency’.

“America is blessed with an abundance of energy and natural resources that have historically powered our Nation’s economic prosperity. In recent years, burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations have impeded the development of these resources, limited the generation of reliable and affordable electricity, reduced job creation, and inflicted high energy costs upon our citizens,” the order states.

The order will also reverse Biden’s ban on drilling in Alaska as Trump declared America ‘will be a rich nation again’.

Cost of living

In the order, Trump vowed to issue ’emergency price relief’ to Americans aimed at lowering housing prices and availability and creating ’employment opportunities for American workers’.

Trump will also ‘eliminate harmful, coercive “climate” policies that increase the costs of food and fuel’.

Drug cartels

Trump has said drug cartels will now be classified as terrorist organisations.

“International cartels constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organised crime,” the orders says.

Federal workers

Federal employees have now been classified as political hires – a move which in theory would make them easier to fire.

Trump also declared a federal hiring freeze which will reduce the size of federal government.

The creator of a dark web marketplace has sent a message to Donald Trump after being pardoned and released from prison.

Since Donald Trump was sworn into office and became the 47th president of the United States on Monday (January 20), executive orders and presidential pardons have been flying out.

On the list of the excused include the January 6 rioters, Washington DC police officers Andrew Zabavsky and Terence Sutton convicted for their roles in a deadly chase and subsequent cover-up, and some 23 anti-abortion protestors.

However, arguably the biggest name on the list is Ross Ulbricht, a 40-year-old tech pro from Texas who created and operated the darkweb market website, Silk Road, from 2011 up until his arrest in 2013 and conviction two years later.

The president has pardoned the dark web creator (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

For the past 11 years, Ulbricht has been locked up behind bars for crimes ranging from engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, distributing narcotics by means of the internet, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to commit computer hacking.

He was sentenced to double life in prison plus 40 years without any possibility of parole – until now.

Calls to liberate Ulbricht have been in full-swing since his dramatic FBI arrest in 2013 and apparently caught the ears of the president while on his campaign trail.

Trump later vowed to free the Silk Road founder if he returned to power while at the Libertarian Party National Convention last year.

Members of the Libertarian Party campaigned for Ross Ulbricht’s release (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Now, Ulbricht has sent his thanks to the POTUS on Twitter.

In his almost two-minute-long video, he started off with the announcement that the POTUS granted him a ‘full pardon’ while reminding viewers of the time he’s already spent behind bars.

He said: “I was doing life without parole and I was locked up for more than 11 years, but he let me out. I’m a free man now.

“So let it be known that Donald Trump is a man of his word,” he continued with a hand on his heart. “Thank you so much, President Trump for giving me this amazing blessing.”

Ulbricht also stressed how ‘grateful’ he is to be released from prison, adding: “To have my future back, to have a second change. This is such an important moment for me and my whole family, it’s an important moment for everybody who has been working for this for years.”

To his fans and campaigners, he said: “This is a victory and it’s your victory, too. And this is an important moment for everybody, everywhere, who loves freedom and who cares about second chances.

“So, it feels amazing to be free, to say the least, and it’s overwhelming.”

He was grateful to the president (Twitter/@‌RealRossU)

He finished by saying he will need to spend some time with his family to ‘reunite’ and ‘heal’ but promised he would be back.

“There’s a lot to talk about and I look forward to reengaging with the free world. And so once I’m feeling up to it, we’ll talk again,” he ended his message.

Fans have since been flooding social media with their thoughts on his release and pardon.

“We are so happy to see you out!” one wrote on Twitter, while another chimed: “What was done to you was outrageous and should have never happened.”

A third added: “You deserved your freedom. Making a simple website should not be a crime.”

Darknet Diaries’ Jack Rhysider also wrote: “When you’re feeling up for it, I’d love to sit down with you for an interview. But get some rest, catch your breath, and let the reality sink in for a while. Enjoy yourself.”

Just four days into his presidency, Donald Trump has done damage to a market that both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos sunk major investments in.

As two of the world’s richest men, they’re used to some healthy competition – like the space race, for example, with Musk’s SpaceX attempting to rival Bezos’ Blue Origin.

But it seems neither will be benefiting as the president rolled back Joe Biden’s electric vehicle policies after being sworn into office on Monday (January 20).

Trump wasted no time in signing off a raft of executive orders, including one against transgender people, that technically makes everyone in the US female.

On the automotive front, he revoked a 2021 Biden order that demanded EVs make up 50 percent of new cars by 2030.

Musk is now part of Trump’s White House advisory team, DOGE (om Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The president had previously agreed to end federal tax credit for EV purchases, too, which cost up to $7,500 for new zero-emission vehicles and also $4,000 for used ones.

For Tesla CEO Musk, of course, this isn’t great news.

On Tuesday, Tesla shares fell as much as three percent, with investor confidence, understandably, knocked. But confident Musk agreed that EV subsidies should end, reckoning it would only have a ‘slight’ impact on his business.

He told analysts back in July, as per Yahoo! Finance: “I guess that there would be, like, some impact, but I think it would be devastating for our competitors and for Tesla slightly.

“But long term probably actually helps Tesla, would be my guess, yes … the value of Tesla overwhelmingly is autonomy.”

Tesla’s stock price fell sharply the day after Trump’s inaugaration (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Interestingly, Musk is also part of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is tasked with advising the White House to slash ‘federal spending.’

Tesla’s stock wasn’t the only one feeling the pinch on Tuesday, as EV charging company EVgo and Tesla rival Rividian also saw a drop in share prices.

And this too spells trouble for Amazon founder Bezos.

The billionaire is a major investor in Rivian, a company that began trading in 2009, some six years after Tesla began its journey as Tesla Motors in 2003.

According to some reports, Amazon owns a stake of up to 15 percent stake in Rivian after apparently investing $700 million into its car making plans.

Rivian received billions of dollars of funding from Joe Biden’s government (Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Rivian)

The company reportedly received a $6.6 billion loan from Biden’s government only a mere two months ago and recently partnered with Volkswagen to produce an electric Ford backed by Biden.

But a flurry of obstacles – including supply chain issues and high interest rates – saw its production rate slow down.

However, analysts last year predicted Rivian’s growth could ‘accelerate over the next three years,’ with plans to launch a ‘cheaper’ R2 SUV in 2026 and two higher-end RVs by 2027.