Trump had a phone call with OpenAI’s Sam Altman last week

Before officially becoming president, donald trump CNBC had a long conversation with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Friday to discuss the potential of artificial intelligence and the need to develop the technology in the US.

During the talk, Trump seemed particularly animated about building AI here rather than developing it in China, and what that could mean for job creation and a sign of U.S. confidence in his administration, according to a person familiar. with the matter you asked. not to be identified because the conversation was private.

Following Trump’s inauguration on Monday, the president quickly got to work promoting the importance of AI. On Tuesday it announced a joint venture with Open AI, Oracle and soft bench invest billions of dollars in AI infrastructure in the US. OpenAI’s involvement is notable because Altman is in the middle of a heated legal battle with tesla executive director Elon MuskTrump’s top financial backer in the 2024 campaign and advisor who previously co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit.

Musk quickly undermined the newly announced project, called Stargate, wrote in a post on He added that he had “on good authority” that SoftBank “has much less than $10 billion secured.”

Altman responded Wednesday morning, writing in X, that while Musk is “the most inspiring entrepreneur of our time,” his claims are “incorrect, as you surely know.” microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an interview on CNBC that “all I know is that I’m good for my $80 billion,” referring to his company’s plans to invest in AI-enabled data centers this year. Microsoft is the main financial backer of OpenAI.

Musk, who heads Trump’s new government efficiency advisory council, is Sue OpenAI to try to prevent it from becoming a for-profit entity. The two sides have clashed in court documents and in public. in a blog post In December, OpenAI wrote that in 2017, Musk “not only wanted, but actually created a for-profit organization” to serve as the company’s proposed new structure. OpenAI published screenshots of Musk’s emails to back up its claims.

While Altman’s relationship with Musk has frayed, the OpenAI CEO still has ties to the Oracle CEO. Larry Ellisona big Trump supporter, which has helped his standing among the president’s team, the source said. Oracle and OpenAI signed a cloud computing partnership in June.

Altman also has a close relationship with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, another source said. Son publicly pledged $100 billion to invest in the United States before the Stargate announcement, and Softbank also backed OpenAI.

LOOK: President Trump talks about investing in AI infrastructure