Musk and Altman are rivals — for Trump’s approval

Matthew Yglesias, Tribune News Service

Shortly after assembling America’s leading technology CEOs to pay homage to him at his inauguration, Donald Trump presided over the announcement of Stargate, a huge data infrastructure project from OpenAI and Oracle and backed by SoftBank. It was unclear that the new president had anything to do with it, and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said construction was already under way, but OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was undeterred. “We wouldn’t be able to do this without you, Mr. President,” he said. “I’m thrilled that we get to.” Of course, there was a lot of progress made on AI during Joe Biden’s four years as president, including significant buildouts of infrastructure. But chief executives did not make a habit of travelling to Washington to give him personal credit for their business decisions. That’s not really how democracy — or capitalism — or America — is supposed to work.

Until now. That Altman has entered this unseemly flattery contest, even as he and Elon Musk take swipes at each other, is evidence of the diminished state of not only American democracy but also American free enterprise. Musk, the owner of X and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, is also apparently now a senior White House official via the Department of Government Efficiency. After the Stargate announcement, he tweeted snarkily, “They don’t actually have the money.” Altman denied the charges and invited Musk to visit the site. “I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies,” he responded, “but in your new role I hope you’ll mostly put (American flag emoji) first.”

Musk’s next shot was to repost an Altman tweet from December 2021 in which Altman thanked a fellow Silicon Valley executive and investor, Reid Hoffman, for his generous financial contributions to defeating Trump in the 2020 election. Altman, in the spirit of Maoist confession of error, explained: “watching @potus more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him (i wish I had done more of my own thinking and definitely fell in the npc trap). i’m not going to agree with him on everything, but i think he will be incredible for the country in many ways!” The context here, businesswise, is that Musk and Altman are embroiled in litigation over control of OpenAI. If Musk gets his way, he could kneecap a rival and become dramatically wealthier. If he loses, OpenAI will retain its position as a powerful competitor to Musk’s nascent AI efforts.

The political context is even more disturbing, and shows the lengths these guys will go to prove their fealty to Trump. It’s plain from Altman’s campaign contributions that until recently he was a pretty standard moderate Democrat from California. It’s not unusual for a successful businessman who is openly gay, as Altman is, to have shifted his allegiances; Republicans have moderated on gay rights, while Democrats have moved left on economics. But to say you were in an “NPC trap” (it’s a meme, a “non-player character” doesn’t think for himself) as a way of explaining your previous anti-Trump stance is absurd.

As late as July 2022, Musk himself was saying Trump was too old to be president and calling for a different Republican nominee. Now Musk — a quasi-government official, remember, or is it a government quasi-official? — is implying that whether a joint venture should be allowed to go forward should be contingent on how supportive the company’s CEO is of Trump. If I said Trump was making policy decisions on that basis, it would be seen — correctly — as a harsh accusation. But here is one of the most influential people in the president’s own administration saying it.

And then there is Altman, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the U.S., appearing to grant the premise. At that press conference or on X, he didn’t say he’s confident that the rule of law is intact in the U.S. and that regulatory decisions will be made in the public interest. He praised the president and disavowed his prior opposition to Trump.

From the perspective of Altman, it at least makes a kind of logical sense to suck up: He believes Trump is running a lawless administration that will abuse power and distort the market for financial gain, and Altman owes it to his company to play ball. Musk is a Trump fan with a grudge against Altman — yet he subscribes to his rival’s view of the president. This is the stuff of a banana republic. Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who has just a cameo in this drama, has been a vocal Republican and party donor for many years. But nobody ever suggested, during eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency and four years of Biden’s, that he needed to publicly disavow his partisan views and tweet praise of the president to continue running his business.

And rightly so: This is a country with free markets and the rule of law. Businesses are regulated, sometimes well and sometimes poorly, but on the basis of above-board disagreements about public policy. To suggest that the Trump administration will do things differently is not necessarily wrong. But it’s also a pretty serious allegation. If the U.S. is moving toward a system where economic policy decisions are made on the basis of the White House’s relationships with business leaders, that would be far more crippling to America’s long-term prospects than even the most misguided tax or regulatory policy.

After all, today’s biggest companies were once scrappy startups. Back then, they weren’t able to compete with older, more established firms in a game of currying favor with the powers that be. It’s only a relatively level playing field with transparent rules that makes it possible for entrepreneurs to displace incumbents and for the economy to grow. You’d think Elon Musk and Sam Altman, of all people, would know that.