President Donald Trump urged data center companies early Wednesday to pay nearby residents a "dividend" to win local support.
"If companies want to make their Data Centers popular,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “pay the community, and/or individuals within the community, a 'dividend.'" He added: "MAKE DEALS, and get them built!!!"
Data centers — warehouses full of computers, the construction of which has become the backbone of the AI industry in the U.S. — use enormous amounts of electricity. Their relationship to the tech sector, as well as environmental and cost concerns, have made them a source of local political opposition ahead of November's midterm elections.
A Gallup survey in March found 71% of Americans opposed building one in their area, and some states have considered or implemented moratoriums on data center construction. Residential electricity rates in states with major data center growth, including Virginia, Texas and Ohio, are up roughly 27% since 2022.
Trump did not identify a project where payments turned local opposition into support. In Hazle Township, Pennsylvania, a developer offered $10,000 checks to about 4,500 households; residents still had concerns about noise and property values.
Trump also wrote that “data enters [sic] are mandated by me to make their own electricity, and give or sell any excess back to the local community, or grid” so there is "no electric price increase" — an apparent reference to his Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon Web Services and Oracle signed at the White House on March 4.
The text of the pledge — a voluntary arrangement with no enforcement mechanism — calls on “leading United States hyperscalers and AI companies to build, bring, or buy all of the energy needed for building and operating data centers, paying the full cost of their energy and infrastructure, no matter what.” The end goal? To “protect American consumers from price hikes.”
The pledge made no reference to dividends or cash payments to nearby residents.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said in September that the House had passed a bill to write the pledge into law. That bill passed the House; a companion bill remains under review by the Senate.
Trump made a similar pitch in an interview earlier this month. When asked by a journalist whether Republicans had adequately communicated the benefits of the technology to people, Trump said no.
“I think what happens is the company should pay communities a lot of money, whether it's educational money or money directly to people that live there through like a dividend or something, and the data centers would be very popular,” he said.