President Donald Trump urged governors and local officials to embrace AI data centers while touting tech-company pledges not to raise electricity prices. Religious leaders, unions and local activists are increasingly warning that AI needs stronger government oversight and regulation. The backlash could create a midterm election vulnerability for Republicans if voters see AI as benefiting tech companies more than individuals.
AI is positioned right in his blind political spot. The industry and its rapidly developing technology threaten to overwhelm Trump's often-uncanny ability to sense changes in the political winds and could damage his party's fortunes in the midterm election and the longer-term legacy he values. Trump seems aware of the danger, yet can't help himself from hurtling toward it.
On Thursday, he touted commitments by data center developers and utilities not to raise electricity prices, nodding to fears across the country that a surge in data center construction will spike Americans' energy bills. The pledge is a no-brainer for the likes of OpenAI and Oracle, giving them political cover as the complex economics of making changes to aging U.S. grids plays out over years and decades.
But Trump couldn't help but align himself with the companies, even at an event at the Environmental Protection Agency on the pledge that was designed to show he's looking out for the little guy. He exhorted the assembled governors and other local officials to sell their constituents on data centers. "You can't fight it. You have to go with it," he said. Someone is going to get rich on data-center development, and it might as well be you, he told the audience.
The potential for political unrest is clear in the nationwide rumbling against data centers. A majority — 53% — of conservative Republicans opposes building data centers locally, according to a June poll by the Yale Program on Climate Communication. A majority of registered voters, or 58%, shared that opposition to local data center construction, as did 74% of liberal Democrats, in the poll.
The religious right, labor unions, and the broad coalition of local activists are all coming together to say, "slow down" on AI. The politicians who listen will find a powerful groundswell of support behind them.
