Major technology companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, have signed onto President Donald Trump’s “ratepayer protection pledge,” vowing to secure their own power for data centers and prevent costs from trickling down to homeowners.
The Big Tech firms signed onto the pledge during an event at the White House Wednesday afternoon, where Trump echoed his commitment to lowering electricity costs for the public — a campaign promise that has yet to be met.
“We’re going to have a tremendous impact on electricity costs. We’re bringing down all of the costs,” Trump said, calling it a “historic win” for families.
“We’ll also make our electricity grid stronger and more resilient than ever before” through the agreements, he said.
Executives with Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, xAI, OpenAI, and Amazon signed on to the pledge Wednesday afternoon.
The pledge, which Trump repeatedly said was his idea, is broken into five main promises the companies are agreeing to: the first to build, bring, or buy all new energy needed for their data centers and to pay the full cost of infrastructure upgrades as needed to support their operations.
To support the construction of the new power generators, Trump claimed that the data center developers would receive federal approvals for energy projects in just 2 to 4 weeks.
The second promise is to pay for all new power-delivery infrastructure upgrades required to service their data centers. The third is to voluntarily negotiate new separate rate structures with utilities and states.
The fourth section includes a promise to invest in local communities where the companies build data centers by hiring locally and establishing programs to develop relevant skill sets.
And the final section includes a pledge to coordinate with grid operators to make backup generation resources available during times of scarcity.
“We’re committed to continuing to invest to add capacity where we build, and to that end, we will very shortly close on an acquisition of intersect power, which is going to enable us to build data centers right next to those new additional power generation capabilities where possible,” Google president and chief investment officer Ruth Porat said.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the pledge is a collaboration by the administration and tech industry to prevent electricity prices from rising further.
“If you’re going to build a three-gigawatt data center, we want you to add at least three gigawatts of power to the grid,” Wright said during a press call ahead of Wednesday’s signing.
Trump first unveiled the pledge during his State of the Union address at the end of February, saying that the agreements could even lower electricity prices in some communities.
Demand from data centers is expected to surge dramatically in the next decade, with BloombergNEF estimating that data centers will consume more than 100 gigawatts by 2035. By comparison, data center demand in 2024 was estimated to be around 34.7 gigawatts.
For comparison, 1 megawatt is typically considered roughly the same amount of energy consumed by 400 to 900 homes annually.
While recent polling has found that voters are broadly in support of new data centers being built in their area, overall support dwindles as the possible increase in their bills grows. Polling from Politico this month found that if a data center were to increase monthly bills by $50, only 33% would be in favor, while 49% would oppose.
“Many Americans are still concerned that the massive energy demand from AI data centers could drive up their electricity bills in the future, and we understand that,” Trump said Wednesday.
“These companies are committing to provide or pay for all power generation and electricity needed for their AI projects, which is massive, and where possible, they’ll add capacity to the grid by building new power stations,” the president said.
Electricity bills have soared for months, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics finding this month that prices were up 6.3% for the year ending in January, more than double the rate of inflation, which fell to 2.4%.
Trump administration officials, including Wright, have broadly blamed these price hikes on policies imposed under former President Joe Biden to accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels and deployment of renewable energy alternatives, including wind and solar.
RISING ELECTRICITY PRICES KEY TO MIDTERM ELECTIONS BUT NO IMMEDIATE FIX READY
Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to slash energy costs and electricity prices for voters, even vowing to cut prices by half within 12 to 18 months. There have been few signs, however, that the administration will be able to achieve that promise.
In December, Wright told the Washington Examiner that voters should “fire” him if the administration fails to slash electricity prices in half.
