Tech ETFs Rocket Higher on $500B Stargate Project Launch
ETFs like SMH and SOXX gained more than 2% Wednesday after the $500 billion Stargate Project, which includes OpenAI, was announced.
Semiconductor ETFs surged on Wednesday after President Trump and several titans of the tech industry announced the Stargate Project, a venture to invest $500 billion into AI data centers in the U.S.
The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH)—which hold stocks of companies that stand to benefit from the investment—jumped more than 1.4%.
“The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States,” OpenAI wrote in an accompanying press release.
The announcement had originally been made in the White House, where President Trump was joined by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SoftBank boss Masayoshi Son, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
Oracle, OpenAI, Microsoft Shares Surge
The three companies, along with MGX, a UAE-based tech and AI investment company, will be the initial equity funders of the project; while Arm Holdings Plc, Microsoft Corp., NVIDIA Corp., Oracle Corp., and OpenAI will be the initial technology partners.
Shares of each of those companies surged Wednesday, boosting the ETFs that own them, like the aforementioned SOXX and SMH, as well as broader tech-heavy ETFs like the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) and the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK), which were up 1.3% and 2.3%, respectively.
Nvidia, in particular, is seen as a prime beneficiary of any incremental investment into AI infrastructure. The company’s chips account for most of the cost of building AI data centers today. Its shares were up by 4.4% in afternoon trading, while the leveraged GraniteShares 2x Long NVDA Daily ETF (NVDL) rose by 8.8%.
Skepticism Abounds
While investors were busy bidding up AI stocks Wednesday on the back of the Stargate announcement, not everyone was convinced that the venture would amount to anything substantial.
Venture capitalist Gavin Baker remarked on X that it was unlikely that the companies involved in the venture could come up with anything close to $500 billion to invest.
“Stargate is a great name but the $500b is a ridiculous number and no one should take it seriously unless SoftBank is going to sell all of their BABA and ARM,” he said.
Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, echoed that sentiment on X. “They don’t actually have the money,” he said, while adding that “SoftBank has well under $10B secured,” according to his sources.
OpenAI’s Altman fired back, saying, “wrong, as you surely know. want to come visit the first site already under way? this is great for the country. i realize what is great for the country isn't always what's optimal for your companies, but in your new role i hope you'll mostly put 🇺🇸 first,” he said.
As of this writing, Musk hadn’t responded.
Musk, whose company xAI competes with OpenAI, has quarreled with Altman over the years and is currently involved in a lawsuit against the company he co-founded but subsequently left.