WASHINGTON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald

Trump on Thursday dismissed criticism from close ally Elon Musk

about a $500 billion artificial intelligence project that Trump

announced with great fanfare at the White House earlier this

week.

Trump announced on Tuesday that ChatGPT's creator OpenAI,

SoftBank, and Oracle are planning a joint

venture called Stargate, which he said will build data centers

and create more than 100,000 jobs in the United States.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle

Chairman Larry Ellison joined Trump at the White House for the

launch.

Musk, the Tesla CEO and the world's richest man who has

become a close adviser to Trump, is a rival of Altman and is in

an ongoing lawsuit with OpenAI.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Musk doubted the group can put

together the funding for the project.

"They don't actually have the money," Musk said. "SoftBank

has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority."

Trump, taking questions from reporters at the White House on

Thursday, was asked if Musk's criticism of the AI deal bothered

him.

"It doesn't. He hates one of the people in the deal," Trump

said of Musk. "People in the deal are very, very smart people.

But, Elon, one of the people he happens to hate. I have certain

hatreds of people, too."

As for Musk's claims about insufficient funding, Trump said:

"I don't know if they do, but you know, they're putting up the

money. The government's not putting up anything, they're putting

up money. They're very rich people, so I hope they do."

A Trump adviser wondered whether the incident would lead to

a split between Trump and Musk, who is leading Trump's

government efficiency project.

"The end may be in sight," the adviser said.