OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is casting doubt on Elon Musk’s vision of putting data centers in orbit, calling the concept “ridiculous,” the New York Post reports.

“I honestly think the idea with the current landscape of putting data centers in space is ridiculous,” Altman said. “It will make sense someday.”

Altman argued that space-based AI infrastructure would face steep launch costs along with significant operational and maintenance hurdles — including how to repair damaged equipment once it’s in orbit.

“We are not there yet. There will come a time. Orbital data centers are not something that’s going to matter at scale this decade,” Altman said in an interview with Indian Express.

Musk, however, has taken a sharply different view. Speaking earlier this month at an event announcing SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI, he said AI’s soaring energy demands will eventually require moving computing power off Earth to ease environmental strain.

“In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale,” Musk said. “My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space.”

SpaceX has since filed paperwork with the Federal Communications Commission seeking approval to launch up to 1 million satellites designed to function as orbital data centers.

The proposed SpaceX-xAI merger — combining Musk’s rocket company with the AI firm that acquired the X social media platform — is aimed at building a company valued at more than $1 trillion ahead of a planned initial public offering.

The deal is expected to help raise capital and accelerate efforts to deploy data centers in space.

Other tech giants are also exploring space-based infrastructure.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Sunday the company could deploy solar-powered data centers in orbit as soon as next year under what’s known as Project Suncatcher.

Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said at the Cisco AI Summit agrees with Altman’s assessment, saying earlier this month, “There are not enough rockets to launch a million satellites yet, so we’re, like, pretty far from that.”