He love the publicity and most people won't realize that he doesn't have anything to do with this.

Because $500b is not a number anybody will commit to without significant assurances regarding tax breaks, access to labour, security etc which can only be provided by the state.

Musk cannot ban Chinese autos from the US market, but the government can. Same goes for Tiktok, Zuck cannot force Americans not to use it. AI is the next battlefield and further bans will be coming down the line to make sure the investment is protected.

> What does it have to do with Trump then? Why was he involved?

One of the broken parts of the American system is permitting. Trump can sidestep that by letting this be built on federal land. That, in turn, unlocks investment.

Beyond that, DoD and DoE are massive buyers of compute. Seeding the venture with purchase agreements from them de-risks the project further.

Finally, by Trump putting his name to it he assigns it his bully pulpit's prestige. (Though that doesn't appear to have carried over to Musk, who's already taking pot shots at it.)