• President Donald Trump announced Stargate, a new joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank.
• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says Stargate will allow AGI to be built in the US, creating more jobs.
• Altman said that a project like Stargate may not have been possible without Trump.

The US will be able to achieve AGI, or artificial general intelligence, with President Donald Trump's new Stargate AI project, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Tuesday.

Altman was at the White House on Tuesday when Trump announced Stargate, a new joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank. Stargate is expected to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure across the US.

"This means we can create AI and AGI in the United States of America," Altman said of Stargate during a Tuesday interview with Fox News's Bret Baier, adding that Stargate wouldn't exist without Trump.

"I think with a different president it might not have been possible. But we are thrilled to get to do this, and I think it'll be great for Americans, great for the whole world," Altman told Baier.

Building AGI in the US would create "hundreds of thousands of jobs," Altman said at the press conference following Trump's Tuesday announcement.

"I'm thrilled we get to do this in the United States of America. I think this will be the most important project of this era," Altman told reporters at the White House.

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

To be sure, the US is likely not close to achieving AGI just yet. Altman, too, took to X to temper expectations that OpenAI is on the cusp of achieving AGI.

On Monday, Altman wrote in an X post that OpenAI was "not gonna deploy AGI next month, nor have we built it."

"We have some very cool stuff for you but pls chill and cut your expectations 100x!" Altman wrote on X.

Still, OpenAI is developing new offerings — and rolling them out quickly. The OpenAI chief wrote in a blog post on January 5 that companies could start using AI agents this year.

"We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it. We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents 'join the workforce' and materially change the output of companies," Altman wrote.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva predicted in a blog post in January 2024 that AI's impact on the job market would be uneven. Around 60% of the jobs in advanced economies will be affected by AI, Georgieva wrote.

"Roughly half the exposed jobs may benefit from AI integration, enhancing productivity," Georgieva wrote in her blog post.

"For the other half, AI applications may execute key tasks currently performed by humans, which could lower labor demand, leading to lower wages and reduced hiring. In the most extreme cases, some of these jobs may disappear," she added.

A rare winter storm that's slamming the southern U.S. with "dangerously cold temperatures," historic snow and icy conditions has been linked to at least 10 deaths as it disrupts travel across the region.

The big picture: Schools, government offices and roads across the southern U.S. closed and thousands of flights were delayed or canceled due to the cold weather that's brought record snowfall to places including New Orleans, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; and Pensacola, Florida.

• Lake Charles, La., saw its first-ever blizzard warning on Tuesday due to heavy snow and high winds from the extreme weather that's tied to the polar vortex event across the Lower 48 states, as it left some 300 million people in the Lower 48 states under cold weather alerts.

Threat level: Rare winter storm and blizzard warnings and advisories stretched from South Texas to Jacksonville, Florida.

• The once-in-a-generation winter storm with "heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain, was spreading eastward from parts of the Florida panhandle through the eastern Carolinas, per a National Weather Service forecast discussion.
• "Major highway and air traffic disruptions, including possible road closures and flight cancellations, may continue for several days even after the snowfall ends," the NWS noted.
• "The Arctic Air Mass will create widespread sub-freezing overnight lows along the Gulf Coast and throughout the Southeast. The cold weather will exacerbate power outages," it added.
• "From Tuesday evening into Wednesday, 0.10 inches of freezing rain will develop across northeastern Florida and southeastern Georgia."

Situation report: Five deaths were reported in a vehicle crash on a highway between La Pryor and Batesville in Zavala County, Texas, on Tuesday morning.

• The Dale County, Alabama coroner confirmed two storm-related deaths.
• Austin-Travis County emergency officials "have responded to more than a dozen cold exposure calls since Monday, including two fatal incidents," per a city of Austin, Texas, statement
• Georgia officials said at least one person had died of hypothermia in the Atlanta area.

Zoom out: "Bitterly cold" high pressure extended from the Ohio Valley to the Southern Plains, bringing temperatures 25 to 30 degrees below average from parts of the Mid-Atlantic in addition to the Central Gulf Coast, per the NWS.

More from Axios:

• Read Axios New Orleans' coverage
• Read Axios Houston's coverage
• In photos: Rare snowstorm hits much of the U.S. South, Texas
• Polar vortex-driven Arctic blast to yield historic southern snow

• President Donald Trump said he would be open to Elon Musk or Larry Ellison buying TikTok.
• Trump previously floated a joint venture, saying that the US should own half of the app.
• Trump has signed an executive order that gives TikTok another 75 days to figure out a new game plan.

A day after his inauguration, President Donald Trump said he'd be on board with Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison buying TikTok.

In a Tuesday press briefing announcing a $500 billion artificial intelligence joint venture with Oracle, Trump said he was open to the idea of Ellison or Musk buying TikTok.

When asked by a reporter if he would be open to Musk buying the app, Trump said, "I would be, if he wanted to buy it, yes."

"I'd like Larry to buy it, too," he added.

While Musk has not directly expressed interest in buying TikTok, he said on X on Sunday that he has "been against a TikTok ban for a long time" because it "goes against freedom of speech."

A handful of big-name investors have shown interest in buying the app. "Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary has said that he, in collaboration with former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, would be interested in purchasing the app.

YouTuber MrBeast also said in an X post on January 13, "Okay fine, I'll buy Tik Tok so it doesn't get banned." Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that the YouTuber was joining a group of investors led by the tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley, who have expressed interest in buying the app.

In 2024, ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese owner, said it would rather shut down TikTok in the US than sell it.

For now, TikTok's fate in the US hangs in the balance after the Supreme Court on Friday upheld the divest-or-ban law. This law requires ByteDance to divest from the platform in the US, or stop operating in the country.

TikTok went dark for its 170 million US users on Saturday. Hours later, its operations were restored.

Shortly after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order to pause the ban, which gives TikTok another 75 days to figure out a game plan.

Trump also suggested on Monday that the US should own half of TikTok.

"So I think, like a joint venture, I think we would have a joint venture with the people from TikTok. We'll see what happens," Trump added, without specifying who he wanted to have as TikTok's US partner.

Trump's order to delay the TikTok ban has prompted some opposition from within the GOP.

Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas — who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — and Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska wrote in a joint statement on Sunday that there is "no legal basis" for TikTok to get an extension.

In the statement, the senators lauded Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft for complying with the ban.

"President Trump said he signed the executive order to 'make a deal to protect our national security,'" Ian Swanson, Ricketts' press secretary, told BI.

"Senator Ricketts agrees that protecting our national security is paramount and that can only be done by ridding TikTok of all ties with Communist China," Swanson added.

Representatives for Musk, Oracle, and Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Ukrainian paratroopers said a North Korean soldier they captured ran into a pillar to knock himself out.
• They said they found him alone on the battlefield with a grenade, a knife, and some food.
• Their prisoner closely resembles one of the two North Koreans Ukraine said it captured.

Ukrainian paratroopers in Kursk said they captured a North Korean soldier who tried so hard to evade capture that he intentionally ran into a concrete pillar to knock himself out.

Three members of the 95th Separate Air Assault Polissia Brigade spoke of the encounter in a video published on Tuesday, describing how one of their drones found a lone North Korean on the battlefield after an assault had ended.

The clip was published by the brigade's press service on its YouTube, Facebook, and Telegram accounts.

The paratroopers said they enveloped the North Korean with guidance from drone operators and found that he didn't respond to commands in Ukrainian, Russian, or English.

"With gestures, we showed him what to do," one of the paratroopers said.

The soldier was carrying a grenade, a knife, and a sausage, the paratroopers said.

They said the North Korean was also visibly wounded, with his jaw bandaged and one of his hands appearing to be injured.

One paratrooper said the injured soldier appeared calm at first but grew agitated when he saw a vehicle coming to pick him up.

"When we brought him near the road, suddenly he ran headfirst into a concrete pillar at full speed. He hit it very hard and probably passed out," he said.

But the paratrooper also suspects it might have been a ploy by the North Korean soldier, because the latter fell backward, not forward, as one might expect when a charging person faints.

"I think he was faking it, trying to get us close so he could grab a weapon and attack us," he said.

The paratroopers said they eventually hauled the North Korean into a vehicle and took him away from the front lines, after which he received food and watched romance films upon request.

An older paratrooper said in the video that the North Koreans' tactics appeared to mimic Russia's Soviet-era fighting, with frontal assaults where "they try to crush simply with massive numbers."

But he added that while Russian forces in Kursk tend to attack in groups of two or three, the North Koreans would conduct assaults with groups of at least six.

The paratroopers said that Pyongyang's forces would fight to the end if cornered, adding that their brigade reported instances where wounded North Koreans blew themselves up to avoid capture.

"They are not in a mood to surrender," one of the paratroopers said.

The man they captured appears to be one of two North Korean soldiers whom Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced had been seized from the battlefield in early January.

One was captured by Ukraine's special forces, while the other was found by the Polissia brigade.

The paratroopers posted a clip of their prisoner on January 11, which they referenced when recounting the events of his capture in their Tuesday video.

Another North Korean soldier, separate from the pair shown by Zelenskyy, was captured in December, but South Korea's intelligence service said he died of his injuries shortly after.

Western and South Korean intelligence estimate that 12,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia, where they've been deployed to fight a Ukrainian incursion in the Kursk region.

Their presence in the war is a significant sign of Pyongyang and Moscow strengthening an economic and military partnership spurred by Russia's isolation since the war began.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is believed to have received food, financial assistance, and Russian expertise in space and weapons technologies in return for his troops and guns.

Meanwhile, the West fears that North Korean troops are gaining valuable combat experience from fighting in Russia.

A captured North Korean soldier's documents obtained by The Washington Post discusses guidance related to the six-man frontal assaults the paratroopers spoke of.

"In modern warfare, where real-time reconnaissance and drone strikes are conducted, failing to disperse combat teams into smaller units of two to three members could lead to significant casualties from enemy drones and artillery," one document read, per The Post.

The escalating bird flu crisis is ravaging the nation's supply of eggs, leading to increased prices and presenting an immediate challenge for the Trump administration.

Why it matters: An outbreak of avian influenza is growing and has affected nearly 13 million birds in the last 30 days, according to USDA data.

• Some retailers are limiting how many eggs consumers can purchase while others are having a hard time keeping shelves stocked.
• "It's really a crazy situation and an unfortunate situation for consumers because the supply situation is what it is due to the bird flu," Jason Hart, CEO of grocery chain Aldi, tells Axios.

State of play: Egg prices are climbing to new record highs daily, Karyn Rispoli, managing editor for eggs in the Americas for price-reporting service Expana, tells Axios.

• A dozen large eggs in the Southeast and South Central "will be north of $7," while Midwest eggs are $6.95, Rispoli said Tuesday.
• Brian Moscogiuri, a global trade strategist at Eggs Unlimited, an egg supplier based in Irvine, California, told Axios that the "transactional values of eggs are as high as we've ever seen them."
• "Some of the retailers are short because their suppliers have been directly impacted and their replacement cost is extremely high right now because there's not much egg to be had in the market," he said.

Meanwhile, Emily Metz, president and CEO of the American Egg Board, said demand "for eggs at retail has been exceptionally high for a sustained period, and failing to act quickly and identify new ways to fight [highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI] could mean continued challenges for customers and consumers who need the nutritious foods impacted."

What's next: Egg prices are expected to fly to new highs in the coming weeks and months.

• Hart said Aldi is committed to keeping prices as low as possible on eggs, consistent with its general pricing philosophy. "We view ourselves as that shock absorber for the consumer, so wherever we can we hold the line" on prices, he said.
• Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, told Axios in a statement that it "does not have a purchase limit on eggs, and although supply is very tight in some areas, we're working with suppliers to try and help meet customer demand."

What we're watching: It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will take any action in addition to efforts already underway to address the crisis.

• Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it would give Moderna approximately $590 million to accelerate bird flu vaccine trials.
• The American Egg Board tells Axios it's eager to work with the Trump administration as farmers, distributors and retailers all grapple with egg shortages and price hikes.
• Department of Agriculture representatives did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment from Axios.

Reality check: "There's no real silver bullet for this thing right now, outside of trying to stop the spread of the virus and get birds repopulated as quickly as possible," Moscogiuri said, adding that "farms are doing to their best of their ability."

• "It's unlikely that the new administration will be able to bring about significant change in just a matter of weeks, especially when it comes to the bird flu itself," Rispoli said.

The bottom line: Eggs are considered safe to eat but don't expect them to get cheaper until bird flu is under control.

The Trump administration is directing agencies to move to close federal diversity, equity and inclusion offices and place DEI staff on paid leave by 5pm Wednesday ET ahead of being laid off.

The big picture: The memorandum that the Office of Personnel Management sent to federal agencies on Tuesday follows President Trump's signing of an executive order a day earlier to dismantle DEI initiatives within the federal government.

Details: The OPM's memo directs agencies to report on steps taken to implement the order by 12pm Thursday ET.

• This includes providing a "complete list" of DEI offices and workers as of Election Day 2024, according to the memo.
• The agencies must provide a written plan for "executing reduction-in-force action" for DEI employees by 5pm Friday ET, the memo says.

What they're saying: "President Trump campaigned on ending the scourge of DEI from our federal government and returning America to a merit based society where people are hired based on their skills, not for the color of their skin," said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a media statement.

• This is another win for Americans of all races, religions and creeds. Promises made, promises kept."
• Trump in Monday's order calling for the termination of all federal government DEI programs described the Biden administration initiatives to increase diversity, equity and inclusion as "illegal and immoral discrimination programs."

Zoom out: Companies have in recent months responded to Republican lawmakers and activists railing against DEI by rolling back programs.

Go deeper: Americans are fine with corporate DEI

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.

The top Democrat on the DOGE subcommittee is ready to "fight back" against any attempts to dismantle federal agencies and programs like Social Security and Medicare, she told Axios on Tuesday.

Why it matters: Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), a former OMB staffer, is very skeptical that DOGE will live up to its public billing.

• "All you need to do is see that they put [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in charge of the committee to know that this is likely going to be very much a political committee," she said.

Driving the news: Stansbury was named the ranking member of the DOGE Subcommittee on Oversight, the congressional arm of the Elon Musk-led government department.

• Stansbury said that there are "a lot of good government, bipartisan solutions" that she supports, including modernizing federal agencies and spending federal resources more efficiently.
• She said that she has not yet spoken to her GOP counterpart since being named as the Democratic ranking member earlier on Tuesday.

Zoom out: Stansbury said that she will "fight back against efforts to dismantle federal agencies, to take away critical programs like Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare, we'll fight back against the dismantling of environmental programs."

• She also said that she will "be on watch" to make sure that Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, does not use his role in government to benefit his private companies.

The bottom line: Stansbury highlighted a number of executive orders that Trump signed on his first day in office, including reinstating his first-term Schedule F executive order and dismantling government diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives within 60 days.

• "These are the kinds of things that I'm prepared to fight back against and to lead Democrats in the battle to make sure that we're protecting the American people," she told Axios of her role with the new subcommittee.

Go deeper: Inside House Democrats' DOGE-curious bloc

President Trump pushed his top two leaders to play outside the lines in Tuesday's White House meetings.

Why it matters: Trump hasn't shown much interest in resolving the GOP's big internal fight over reconciliation strategy. But he's showing a high level of interest in how to gain leverage over the Democrats.

• Trump urged Senate GOP leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to be ready to roll on recess appointments if Democrats gum up confirmations, Politico reports.
• Trump told Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that California wildfire aid could be good leverage to get the big debt limit hike he's been pushing.

After the meeting, Johnson disputed suggestions from reporters that the House and Senate were still divided on process, insisting they had "a plan pretty well formulated now.

• Thune said the discussion was more focused on "what we can get done," he said. "We're obviously all interested in getting to the same destination."
• That doesn't sound like identical readouts of the same meeting.

The bottom line: At this stage, the GOP trifecta seems to be spending more time admiring its problems than solving them.

President Trump on Tuesday announced billions in private sector investments to grow artificial intelligence in the U.S. and build massive new data centers for OpenAI.

The big picture: OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and the UAE's MGX will convene under a joint venture called Stargate, and will commit $100 billion to start with a potential of up to $500 billion over four years.

• The new company will create more then 100,000 American jobs, Trump said.
• Stargate will open a data center project in Texas and later expand to other states.

Driving the news: "This monumental undertaking is a resounding declaration of confidence in America's potential under a new president," Trump said Tuesday.

• SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle founder and chairman Larry Ellison appeared with Trump at the White House for the announcement.
• Son will serve as the company's chairman, according to an Oracle press release.
• Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle and OpenAI are the initial technology partners, per the release.

Zoom out: The announcement comes a day after Trump signed an executive order rescinding a Biden-era executive order regulating AI.

Flashback: SoftBank's Son made a similar promise of $50 billion investment in Dec. 2016 on the eve of Trump's first term.

Our thought bubble: Trump will take credit for these spending commitments, but the rush to build AI data centers has been building for two years, and this money would likely have flowed regardless of who occupied the White House.

Go deeper: Biden warns against extreme wealth and rise of "tech industrial complex"

• Trump signed an executive order requiring federal government employees to return to the office.
• Union leaders opposed the mandate and said it was based on misconceptions about federal workers.
• They also said telework was crucial for recruiting talent and emergency preparedness.

Leaders of unions representing federal government employees say President Donald Trump's return-to-office mandate won't make the government more efficient — and could have some unintended consequences.

Randy Erwin, national president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, or NFFE, and Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, said the RTO mandate would make the government less effective.

"They're trying to score political points by insinuating that people on telework aren't coming to work when nothing could be further from the truth," Erwin told Business Insider in an interview.

If not for telework and other family-friendly work methods, the federal government "would not be able to recruit and retain the talent that it needs," Erwin said. The NFFE is the oldest union in the US and represents more than 110,000 federal workers.

"When you can't make anywhere near what you could be making in the private sector, some family, flexible work policies become a very, very important thing," he said, adding that some current federal workers may also choose to leave.

Kelley, who leads AFGE, the largest federal employee union representing 800,000 members, also said telework was important to attracting and retaining top talent within the federal government.

"Providing eligible employees with the opportunity to work hybrid schedules is a key tool for recruiting and retaining workers in both the public and private sectors," Kelley said in a statement.

Erwin told BI the mandate suggested a lack of understanding about how the federal government works and that "there's this myth that federal workers aren't coming to work."

An August report from the Office of Management and Budget found that about 10% of civilian workers across two dozen agencies worked remotely without expectations that they would regularly work in the office.

Erwin said comments from the Trump administration, including Elon Musk, who is leading the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have misrepresented the federal workforce.

"I don't think he knows the first thing about the federal workforce, who they are, where they are, and the valuable services that they provide," he said of Musk, adding, "They're making everybody sound like some innovation-blocking bureaucrat."

Erwin said most federal employees are not based in Washington, DC, and are nationwide. Less than a fifth of the federal workforce in the Office of Personnel Management database lives in DC or the nearby states of Maryland and Virginia, a recent Pew analysis found.

Kelley also said lawmakers and Trump's transition team "spent months exaggerating the number of federal employees who telework and accusing those who do of failing to perform the duties of their jobs."

"The truth is that less than half of all federal jobs are eligible for telework, and the workers who are eligible to telework still spend most of their work hours at their regular duty stations," he added.

Both Erwin and Kelley said telework was also essential to ensuring the federal government's continued smooth operation in a state of emergency.

Erwin said that after September 11, the ability to telework was considered essential for the federal government, adding, "It is only very recently that telework has been frowned upon in the federal government." He said the COVID-19 pandemic showed how the ability to telework enabled the government to continue operating relatively smoothly.

Kelley said remote work has been "a critical tool for federal agencies to maintain continuity of operations in emergencies, increase disaster preparedness, and improve efficiency."

He also said hybrid work has been so successful that many agencies have consolidated or sold off office space that's expensive to maintain, "meaning there may no longer be enough office space to accommodate an influx of on-site workers."

Some federal employees who are union members have collective bargaining agreements that explicitly allow for remote or hybrid work. Erwin said an executive order would not override those agreements, at least for as long as they are active.

Erwin said the return-to-office mandate showed the "problem with governing by completely political, manufactured talking points."

"They're going to force people back into the office, and it's not going to make people more productive for the American taxpayer," he said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.