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Elon Musk was part of the Trump coterie who flew to meet with the Saudis this week. The planned series of forums and spectacles was a way for Musk, who runs his own artificial intelligence (AI) company, xAI, to position himself within fierce peer competition for funding from the Saudis. Musk wants to deepen his AI footprint across his many companies, so he stood side-by-side with other oligarchs — all of whom bowed to Trump, who has been a major proponent of AI.
Trump has already secured a $142 billion (€127 billion) defense agreement with the Saudi’s commonly-accepted ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. That agreement will see Washington provide Riyadh with “state-of-the-art warfighting equipment” in return for a Saudi investment of $20 billion (€17 billion) in the US AI sector.
Even as Musk has promised to pull away from his federal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) role in order to focus on his floundering Tesla company, Julia Angwin of the New York Times argues, “DOGE is assembling a sprawling domestic surveillance system for the Trump administration — the likes of which we have never seen in the United States.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration appears to be stripping away regulatory barriers for AI, including protections for intellectual property, the Independent reports. Intellectual property rights are important because they encourage creativity and innovation. By giving inventors and creators exclusive rights to their work, intellectual property laws allow them to profit from their investments and recoup their research and development costs. Not so much if Trump has his way…
With this backdrop, it’s worth looking more closely at some of the visions, promises, and deals that Musk and others exchanged with the Saudis.
Who attended the Trump-bin Salman luncheon on Tuesday? Dozens of US business technology leaders were in the entourage, hoping to find interested Saudi investors. In addition to Musk, the AI entrepreneurs in the entourage included, as Jason Karaian outlines in the New York Times, “Sam Altman, the chief executive of ChatGPT parent OpenAI; Jensen Huang, the leader of the advanced chipmaker Nvidia; Ruth Porat, the chief investment officer of Alphabet, Google’s parent company; and Andy Jassy, the chief of Amazon, which is a major provider of cloud-computing services.”
Other than the gift of a jet, what other interesting events of note took place during the Trump-Musk trip to visit the Saudis? The Saudi-US Investment Forum — coinciding with Trump’s visit — gave Saudi officials an opening to lobby the Trump administration on trade policy following the president’s tariff agenda. The entire circus was a bad look, as Saudi Arabia is a country that the US State Department warns has “significant human rights issues.” Moreover, the corruption within the Trump administration continued to come to light during his Middle East visit. Eric Trump, who runs the Trump Organization, was recently in the region to announce a high-rise Trump hotel in Saudi. The president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner had previously secured a $2 billion investment from Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, which is overseen by the crown prince himself.
Were other Tesla execs present? Yes, Musk was joined on the trip by his brother Kimbal, who also sits on the boards of Tesla and SpaceX. Antonio Gracias was part of the group, too — Gracias is a private equity investor, a Musk Yes Man, and a member of the DOGE team.
Why would the Saudis be particularly interested in Musk? DOGE’s mining of US citizens’ personal data means Musk has access to enormous amounts of information that can now be used for his xAI company.
Has Musk already been part of investor conversations with the Saudis this year? Oh, yeah. Forbes reminds us that on April 29, X Corp., Musk’s social media company, raised $1.23 billion in fresh debt to refinance part of its existing $12 billion debt load from Musk’s leveraged buyout three years ago. One of the firms helping to refinance X’s debt was Kingdom Holding Company, the investment firm chaired by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud. The Forbes article adds, “Not surprisingly, all of these business dealings combined with Musk’s influence with Donald Trump as his informal advisor and as head of DOGE, pose plenty of concerns about conflicts of interest, according to experts.”
What did the Saudis tease to spark Musk’s interest? The Kingdom highlighted its progress in enabling cloud services, digital infrastructure, and AI value chains, saying these efforts reflect Saudi Arabia’s ambition to lead in the post-data era. The Kingdom’s goal of becoming a center for responsible and effective AI innovation took center stage.
What Starlink announcement came out of the Musk-Saudi chats? Saudi Arabia has approved Starlink for aviation and maritime use in the region. Musk thanked Saudi Arabia for adopting the Starlink service, describing it as a significant step toward supporting the future of global communications technology. Starlink is a constellation of thousands of small satellites in low Earth orbit that provide internet access across the globe. The original idea was to deliver connectivity to remote areas that have little or none. It is also set to function as an alternative to near-monopolies operated by telecom and cable companies. Offering Starlink hardware for free outside the US is something new for the company as it seeks additional subscribers.
What other potential Musk-Saudi ventures were discussed? The Saudi Press Agency reported that Musk spoke about how humanoid robots represent a productivity revolution that could expand the global economy tenfold. He argued this could lead to an economy of abundance and a model of “comprehensive high income” that goes beyond the traditional universal basic income concept. He also discussed potential cooperation in smart mobility, including Robotaxi projects and The Boring Company’s tunnel transportation systems for Saudi cities. Such technologies, Musk said, could transform urban areas and improve transit efficiency. In closing, Musk described an optimistic outlook for humanity, urging a model of progress that blends prosperity, exploration, and coexistence with advanced technology. He called for international cooperation to establish ethical frameworks for AI and emerging technologies.
Where is Musk getting the power to run xAI? Musk powers his AI from a massive supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee. After the company assured Memphis Mayor Paul Young that only 15 generators were operating, thermal imaging showed at least 33 running. The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) disclosed that xAI had quietly moved in the remaining portable methane gas turbines without air permits in order to help power its supercomputer. The SELC says that many generators could power an entire city and are enormous emitters of toxic and carcinogenic pollution. To add insult to injury, the supercomputer is in a historically Black neighborhood with a history of industrial pollution and higher rates of cancer and asthma than other Memphis neighborhoods.
In March, Musk bought another property in Memphis to expand the plant by a million square feet.
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