Trump says data centre critics ‘want to end up backwards and poor’

Donald Trump has said Americans opposing construction of AI data centres want to end up “backwards and poor”, even as Republican lawmakers vow to stem the rollout of the unpopular projects ahead of the midterm elections.

The US president made his intervention hours before a scheduled appearance by his vice-president JD Vance in Michigan, where a bipartisan backlash against data centres has led the candidate for the US Senate, Trump-endorsed Mike Rogers, to call for a one-year statewide moratorium on the projects.

“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 his Truth Social platform. “If they want to be successful and rich, with far lower taxes and jobs all over the place, let Data Reign.”

Trump’s comments mark his most explicit intervention in support of the nationwide AI infrastructure building boom, which has provoked a furious backlash from voters, including many Republicans.

Dozens of data centre projects across the US worth roughly $150bn in investment have been stalled or cancelled due to local opposition. Republicans and Democrats have rushed to announce measures to pause, audit or ban further developments.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican and former champion of the data centre rollout, this month in effect halted hundreds of projects in the state, saying developers “got the backlash they deserve”.

Byron Donalds, the Republican candidate to be Florida’s governor, has also turned critical of data centres after initially welcoming them to the state.

Republican strategists have warned that data centres are becoming politically radioactive, pointing to internal polling showing the projects are deeply unpopular and have become a proxy for general anxiety about Big Tech’s power, rising electricity costs and the disruptive effects of AI.

Trump himself has acknowledged that data centres need “PR help”.

On his way to Michigan, Vance told reporters he thought “probably 99 per cent of the backlash to data centres” was due to higher energy prices in surrounding areas. He said if developers addressed these issues, “I don’t think the data centres are that controversial.”

The backlash also threatens to derail the Trump administration’s economic agenda, as AI-related investment drives US economic growth, helping to offset the hit from the president’s war in Iran and high energy prices.

“If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame,” Trump said in his social media post. He also echoed Big Tech executives who say any slowdown in the data centre expansion will give China a lead in AI.

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Separately on Monday, an advocacy group linked to tech and AI billionaires said it was launching a “multi-million-dollar public engagement campaign” to build support for data centres by highlighting their economic benefits, starting with an ad blitz in Kansas, Ohio and Wisconsin.

The group is associated with Leading the Future, a Super Pac that has raised more than $75mn from Silicon Valley billionaires, including venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman.

The campaign group said it would support state and federal candidates who “oppose efforts to undermine America’s ability to build the infrastructure required to compete globally in artificial intelligence”, ahead of November’s elections.