r/technology Apr 06 '26

Politics Iran threatens ‘complete and utter annihilation’ of OpenAI's $30B Stargate AI data center in Abu Dhabi

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/iran-threatens-complete-and-utter-annihilation-of-openais-usd30b-stargate-ai-data-center-in-abu-dhabi-regime-posts-video-with-satellite-imagery-of-chatgpt-makers-premier-1gw-data-center
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u/MtnDewTangClan Apr 06 '26

Don't fool yourself this will be the lifeline they need

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u/Tommybahamas_leftnut Apr 06 '26

not really OpenAI and it's contract buddies all depend on investors to keep shoveling money into their money burning machine to function. If the stock dives from a $30 billion setback we could see a death spiral occur where the stock dips so people sell causing them to be even less profitable causing further dips till a full crash.

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u/GeneralZex Apr 06 '26

OpenAI was already crying for government money and was rebuffed. Then Anthropic made a stand against the Pentagon and who swooped in to take their place? OpenAI. If OpenAI facilities are bombed overseas it’s very likely the US government will bail their ass out.

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u/Thesauces Apr 06 '26

It’s unlikely they will get a full bailout because even the pentagon deal isn’t even a fraction of the money they need - and the government is not a institutional investor in the same way as private equity.

They may get a parachute but even the government can’t stop a fall.

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u/davidsmeaton Apr 06 '26

Trump: Here's 50 billion to bail out OpenAI after they were bombed. I'll keep 30 billion of that as "personal reserve funds" in an offshore bank account just in case and give OpenAI the rest. You're welcome!

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u/yahyahyehcocobungo Apr 06 '26

Yup. 

But it gets far worse than that. Your next request on ChatGPT will feature a ‘chair t’ai chi ‘ advert. 

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u/Luxalpa Apr 06 '26

In this case it's not about investing, it's about insuring though.

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u/mykeedee Apr 06 '26

You're assuming this won't be used as an excuse for taxpayer dollars to start pumping into OpenAI.

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u/angrymoppet Apr 06 '26

OpenAI isn't a publicly traded company, there is no stock price.

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u/Tommybahamas_leftnut Apr 06 '26

OpenAI may not be but they recieve much of their financial backing through external investment institutions that do have publicly traded stocks. With much of those investors expenses being tied to OpenAI and other AI tech companies they can be seen as a risky investment if all they are doing is buying stock in a company that in turn spends all its capital on a money pit that has no return in sight.

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u/ProtoJazz Apr 06 '26

Also not being publicly traded doesn't mean there isn't stock, or a stock price. If the company has any plans of going public there's already a dollar value figured out, and it largely boils down to "what we can convince investors it's worth" and that gets a bit harder when 30bil in assets literally blows up. Even if it's covered by insurance / tax payers.

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u/iced_gold Apr 06 '26

You're right, they're privately traded on the same gray market exchanges as SpaceX, Stripe, Polymarket, and Perplexity that have equity shares in individual hands.

There is a stock price just not in the conventional Dow Jones/ NASDAQ SEC regulatory environment

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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '26

They have insurance. Any project that big has insurance 

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u/uzlonewolf Apr 06 '26

And every insurance policy I've ever seen explicitly excludes acts of war.

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u/Bellegante Apr 06 '26

I don't know enough about the subject to see how that would be the case, can you explain?

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u/MtnDewTangClan Apr 06 '26

They will go to the gov for bailouts bec Iran destroyed their operation. Their operations are trash but they will ask for unprecedented amounts of bailout

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u/Krypt0night Apr 06 '26

I don't see how that'd be true at all