Big tech companies sign White House data center pledge to deliver good optics and less material

Several key technologies The companies signed a non-binding pledge at the White House on Wednesday that the Trump administration claims will ensure technology companies do not pass the cost of data centers onto consumers’ utility bills.

“Data centers…need some PR help,” President Donald Trump said at the event. “People think that if the data center is up and running, electricity will go up.”

He was surrounded by representatives from Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, xAI, Google/Alphabet, Oracle, and Amazon.

Bipartisan outrage over data centers and their potential impact on consumers’ electricity bills has exploded over the past year. With the White House fully invested in artificial intelligence, the pledge represents a major push by the Trump administration to reassure voters that they will not be affected by rising costs.

But electrical experts and industry insiders have cast doubt on how much power the White House actually has to create meaningful consumer protections.

“This is theater,” says Ari Pesco, director of the Electricity Law Initiative in the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School. “This is a press release designed to make it seem like they’re addressing this issue. But this issue can only be addressed by utility regulators or Congress. The White House doesn’t have a lot of action here, and I don’t think the tech companies themselves are the most important parties on the cost issues.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Data centers played a major role in last year’s elections in certain states, including Georgia and Virginia, and they take into account other races taking place across the country this month. A recent poll by Heatmap News found that less than 30% of American voters would support building a data center near where they live. A number of states have introduced bans on data centers in their state legislatures this year, while other states have bills that seek to help offload the cost from the consumer to the companies that build and operate the facilities.

Over the past few months, some major technology companies — including Microsoft and Antropic — have made various pledges about building and operating data centers. The pledges come on the heels of multiple reports that the president was seeking guarantees from technology companies to help defray the costs of data centers for American consumers.

In late January, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that Democrats were to blame for rising electricity costs and that he was “working with major American technology companies” to ensure “Americans do not foot the bill for their energy consumption, in the form of paying higher utility bills.” Less than a month later, he said during his State of the Union address that he would make a “pledge to protect taxpayers.”

“We are telling big tech companies that they have to commit to meeting their own energy needs,” he said. “They can build their own power plants as part of their factories, so no one’s prices will go up, and in many cases, electricity prices for the community will go down, very dramatically then.”

The pledges made independently by major tech companies this year, signed Wednesday, echo many of the promises and initiatives some tech companies are already working on. In a blog post published by Google highlighting its commitment to the pledge, the company listed several ongoing initiatives, including investments in nuclear and geothermal energy as well as framework agreements with electric utilities and pledges to invest in job creation.