Trump Calls on Data Center Firms to Pay 'Share of Profits' to Residents

US President Donald Trump said today, Wednesday, that companies building data centers must pay a "share of profits" to residents in the areas where these centers are located if they want their projects to enjoy popular support, according to Reuters.

Trump added in a post on Truth Social: "I have closely followed this process and saw that data centers that were strongly rejected in a certain area gained significant support once a financial deal was struck."

Data centers powering AI development have sparked political controversy in residential areas across the United States due to the large amounts of water and energy they require, with opposition successfully attracting voters from various ideological backgrounds.

The Trump administration, which prioritized rapid AI development to compete with China, noted the shift in voter sentiment.

Trump said in the post: "I issued a mandate for new, large, and even giant data centers to generate the electricity they need and provide the surplus to the local community or the local power grid, or sell it."

Trump's post
In February, Trump said major tech companies should build their own power generation stations to supply data centers in order to protect consumers from rising energy bill costs.

AI giant Anthropic and billionaire Elon Musk have laid out plans in recent days to distribute some of the gains from the AI boom.

Anthropic announced at the beginning of the week that it is committed to allocating five percent of its shares to a new "public interest" fund, and Elon Musk pledged on Monday to grant one share of SpaceX stock "to every child in America."