Elon Musk takes a shot a new $6.2 billion AI rival

The $100 billion club is a small group.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, only 18 people in the world are currently worth 12 figures.

That number dwindles further when you get to the $200 billion level.

World’s wealthiest people

• Elon Musk: $435 billion
• Larry Ellison: $277 billion
• Jeff Bezos: $255 billion
• Larry Page: $246 billion
• Sergey Brin: $230 billion
  Source: Bloomberg Billionaire Index

With money seemingly unlimited, competition is fierce among such a small clique.

On Nov. 17, a report emerged indicating that former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is launching a new AI startup.

Project Prometheus, which has already garnered $6.2 billion in funding, will focus on AI technology that will aid in engineering and manufacturing across various fields, including computers, aerospace, and automobiles.

This incursion into the artificial intelligence world by Bezos, the world’s third-richest person, has ruffled the feathers of none other than Elon Musk, the world’s richest person.

Musk took to X (formerly Twitter), the social media network he owns, to take a shot at his fellow plutocrat.

Elon Musk laughs off Jeff Bezos’ new $6.2 billion AI startup

On Nov. 17, The New York Times outed Jeff Bezos’ highly secretive new artificial intelligence startup, Project Prometheus.

According to the report, which cites three people familiar with the matter, it isn’t even clear when the company was officially established. However, Project Prometheus will focus on AI technology that will aid in engineering and manufacturing across various fields, including computers, aerospace, and automobiles.

Related: Jeff Bezos is back in the game with new $6.2 billion venture

Bezos will serve as co-CEO along with Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist who formerly worked with Google co-founder Sergey Brin at X, Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory research hub.

Later in the day, Musk got wind of the news, and he responded on X, saying, “Haha no way…copy [cat emoji].”

A user then responded to Musk, saying, “Too bad you guys couldn’t ally,” to which Musk replied, “How?”

Jeff Bezos returns to the executive suite with Project Prometheus

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and former CEO, stepped down as CEO on July 5, 2021, although he retained his highly influential role as executive chairman of the board.

Amazon timeline

• 2024 full-year profit of $59.2 billion
• Founded in 1994 (online bookstore launched in 1995)
• Originally named Cadabra
• Current market cap of $2.4 trillion
• Over 300 million global active customers
• 2024 full-year revenue of $638 billion +11%

Bezos has been leading the space exploration company Blue Origin, although he is only listed as a founder of the company.

With Project Prometheus, Bezos is returning to the C-suite.

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Project Prometheus marks the first time Bezos has taken a formal operational role in a company since he stepped down from Amazon, according to The Times.

The company is entering a crowded field of competitors focused on applying AI technology to physical tasks, such as robotics, drug design, and scientific discovery.

But Project Prometheus has a funding advantage that other startups lack. The company has already hired nearly 100 employees, including researchers poached from OpenAI, Google’s DeepMind, and Meta.

AI spending accelerates as tech companies build infrastructure

Much like the wealth of the world’s richest, AI spending has also reached 12 figures.

Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft — the four biggest players — are expected to spend $750 billion on AI-related capital expenditures in the next two years alone. Morgan Stanley analysts expect global spending on datacenters to reach nearly $3 trillion between now and 2028, with $1.4 trillion of that coming from just the big U.S tech companies, The Guardian reported.

“The numbers just don’t make sense,” according to industry watcher Derek Thompson.

“Tech companies are projected to spend about $400 billion this year on infrastructure to train and operate AI models. By nominal dollar sums, that is more than any group of firms has ever spent to do just about anything,” he said. 

“The Apollo program allocated about $300 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars to get America to the moon between the early 1960s and the early 1970s. The AI buildout requires companies to collectively fund a new Apollo program, not every 10 years, but every 10 months.“

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