- President Trump says American households should not have to “pick up the tab” for higher energy costs
- AI data centers have put enormous pressure on local area networks
- Microsoft is the first company to make “big changes”
President Trump has said he wants tech giants to “pay their own way” for AI data centers to save Americans from having to “pick up the tab” by facing higher electricity costs.
The news comes as the president promises to work with major US tech companies to protect consumers from higher utility costs, with Microsoft soon to announce changes to stop data centers pushing up US electricity bills.
Trump blamed the previous administration for pushing up US utility bills by more than 30% and vowed to work with Big Tech to remove the influence of AI data centers on household spending.
Trump wants to tackle the US energy bills
The president’s comments come ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, along with other commitments, such as working with banks to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for a year.
“First is Microsoft, who my team has been working with and who will make big changes starting this week to ensure Americans don’t ‘pick up the tab’ for their POWER consumption,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post, promising to work with other companies.
“I just want you to know that we’re doing everything we can, and I believe we’re going to manage this issue well so that you all don’t have to pay more for electricity because of our presence,” Microsoft president Brad Smith said earlier at a town hall meeting in Wisconsin (via CNBC).
The company has since backed out of its Wisconsin data center plans amid community backlash.
At the same time, some companies are looking to go completely off-grid with their data centers to minimize or negate the effects on communities. Oracle and OpenAI’s Texas-based Stargate campus, for example, will include a natural gas-powered second data center.
Electricity prices rose about 5.1% nationwide between September 2024 and 2025, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. The US Energy Information Administration found that housing income per kWh increased by 5.2% on average, but it was as high as 25.8% in the District of Columbia.
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