President Donald Trump attacked voters who oppose data centers Monday morning, warning that they will have only themselves to blame if they “kill the golden goose.”
Trump escalated his defense of data centers as polls show Americans from both political parties are increasingly opposed to the server farms central to the artificial intelligence boom. Some Republicans running for office this year have broken with Trump and grown increasingly critical of data centers in response to the groundswell of public opposition.
“The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.”
Trump has been warning for weeks that communities opposing data centers will be left behind. A national survey conducted earlier this month by the Economist and YouGov, however, found that 51 percent of Americans disagree with the president’s assessment.
The poll also found that 61 percent of Americans opposed construction of a data center in their community, including 47 percent of Republicans.
Trump has largely brushed off Americans’ concerns that data centers could raise their utility bills, accelerate advances in technology that could automate their jobs and disrupt their neighborhoods. The White House has created a pledge for tech companies to cover the rise in energy costs associated with the data center build-out, but it is voluntary and there are no consequences for companies that take the pledge but don’t comply.
Trump also warned that China could benefit from the rising opposition to data centers, as Chinese companies release increasingly sophisticated AI models that are more competitive with their American counterparts.
“China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement,” he wrote.
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