UPDATE FROM GIZMODO
Saudi Arabia appears to be fully engaged in a MAGA-washing campaign,
buddying up to the Trump administration and its hangers-on to improve
its image for billionaires to do business there.
It appears to be
working.
At a US-Saudi investment forum hosted on Wednesday, Elon Musk announced that his AI startup, xAI, will build a 500-megawatt data center in Saudi Arabia.
- The two aren’t unfamiliar with each other, as Saudi Arabia’s investment arm, Kingdom Holding Company, was one of the biggest financers of Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
The data center does still face some obstacles, including the fact
that Saudi Arabia can’t currently purchase the latest and greatest chips
from Nvidia due to export controls put in place by the Trump
administration.
But don’t worry, Trump seems more than happy to lift those restrictions so that Humain can meet its goal of deploying 400,000 AI chips by 2030
Tareq Amin, the head of Saudi Arabia’s artificial intelligence startup Humain, has been courting favor with the Trump administration for exactly this reason, including promising not to do business with Chinese firms like Huawei.
Tareq Amin, the head of Saudi Arabia’s artificial intelligence startup Humain, has been courting favor with the Trump administration for exactly this reason, including promising not to do business with Chinese firms like Huawei.
In
case there was any doubt, it appears you can still grease the wheels of
dealmaking with the Trump administration with flattery and favoritism.
Artificial Intelligence
Elon Musk’s xAI Is Getting a Fancy 500-Megawatt Data Center in Saudi Arabia
Musk and the Kingdom worked together to buy Twitter, so they already have a nice relationship.
By
AJ Dellinger
FACTOID: The partnership between Musk and Saudi Arabia makes sense on several levels. Despite their fallout that saw Musk claim Trump is in the Epstein files,
he remains the most high-profile MAGA-aligned exec out there.
