Trump says nearly 200 firms have signed pledge to protect Americans from costs arising from datacenters

Assembly tents at the Stargate AI datacenter construction site in Abilene, Texas, seen in 2025. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Assembly tents at the Stargate AI datacenter construction site in Abilene, Texas, seen in 2025. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images Trump says nearly 200 firms have signed pledge to protect Americans from costs arising from datacenters ‘Ratepayer Protection Pledge’ president has touted is non-binding as people continue to struggle with rising bills Donald Trump has announced that some 200 entities have signed onto his non-binding “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” expanding a voluntary commitment which claims to ensure US consumers will not bear the cost of the AI datacenter build-out. Trump delivered remarks on Thursday at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters, alongside Lee Zeldin, the agency’s administrator, and Chris Wright, the energy secretary. Other attendees included governors who signed onto the pledge, including Brian Kemp of Georgia, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Spencer Cox of Utah and Jeff Landry of Louisiana. The pledge, first announced in March , was initially signed by seven tech companies: Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, xAI, OpenAI and Amazon. It will now cover companies delivering 80% of all power to US homes and businesses, according to the White House. “We have kept rates down, way down,” said Trump. Some 23 Republican governors have signed onto the scheme, Trump announced on Thursday, as have major utilities including Nextera and Duke Energy, datacenter developers and electricity co-operatives. “Electricity rates for 80% of the power distributed in America are now being kept in check by the plan,” Trump said at a press conference. “We have kept rates down, way down.” The announcement came amid a growing backlash to the artificial intelligence boom and the datacenters powering it, as electricity bills rise ahead of November’s midterm elections. In June, utility prices were up 4% year-over-year, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows. On Thursday, Trump said “radical left communists” are the ones who “want to shut down all new development, kill our most successful industries, destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs, and surrender the AI race to China”. Yet opposition to datacenters has become a bipartisan issue, with voters concerned about not only utility rates, but also the environmental and social impacts of AI. More than a dozen states have considered moratoria on datacenters, and New York became the first US state to enact a temporary ban this month . Senator Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a representative, have also proposed a national moratorium . And on Thursday, Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, called for a ban on datacenter development in rural Texas; he is now among the governors who signed onto the pledge. The pledge will “ensure everyone involved in building and powering data centers covers their own costs instead of passin