US President Donald Trump: Data Centers Are the Goose That Lays the Golden Eggs, Communities That Reject Them Will Fall Behind and Be Poor
Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social: Communities across the US that do not want data centers will only fall behind and be poor; to achieve success, lower taxes, and abundant jobs, let data take the lead. He stated that if this goose that lays golden eggs is killed, the consequences will be borne by those who do so, and he pointed out that the anti-data center movement is making China happy. A search did not find an authoritative English transcript from that day using the word "fabulous"; verified terms include cash cow, money-making machine, liquid gold, potentially bigger than oil, and remarkable buildings.
At the same time, he stated that communities rejecting data centers are making a mistake, as they should build the most spectacular power plants themselves and not steal electricity from the grid. Some parks do have behind-the-meter facilities, and there are projects still connected to the public grid. New York State's moratorium on new large data centers was criticized by him as a bad decision. The Governor of Texas is pushing for a pause on large project approvals pending evaluation. Palm Beach County rejected an expansion. A Gallup poll shows about 70% of Americans oppose building data centers locally, with a similar proportion of Fox registered voters opposing. The White House is promoting the redevelopment of federal land and decommissioned nuclear facilities into parks, and the Department of Energy announced that the Kentucky Paducah project includes natural gas power generation and storage, funded by NextEra, Brookfield, and others. Nearly 200 companies have signed a commitment to protect electricity rates, requiring parks to build and purchase their own power and bear the associated costs to avoid raising residential electricity prices. EPA guidelines state that power plants not connected to the public grid may not be subject to certain provisions of the acid rain program. The planned Stargate parks with gigawatt-level loads are still progressing.
Who is buying and who is selling: The event is driven by the president framing local opposition as a concession to China, not the electrification of new cabinets. The buyers are cloud providers looking to secure grid connection points and tax breaks, while the sellers are towns exchanging electricity costs and water sources for capital expenditures. Beneficiaries are developers who have obtained federal land and special facility permits, while those under pressure are electricity-sensitive districts and midterm election voter bases. Funds are flowing from tech capital expenditures to gas turbines, substations, and land premiums, and whether residential electricity prices are insulated depends on whether regulators can truly separate behind-the-meter loads from the retail pool.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Trump has reframed data centers from land disputes to symbols of national competition: rejecting them equals being pro-China, falling behind, and becoming poor. This runs parallel to the pauses and rejections by some governors and county councils in red states, indicating that federal narratives cannot suppress local accounts of electricity costs and water rights. The 70% opposition to local siting in the Gallup poll reflects structural issues of high construction noise and few long-term jobs, rather than aesthetic differences.
The capital path involves ultra-large-scale cloud and model companies locking in electricity with federal land, behind-the-meter power plants, and tax incentives, treating construction period jobs as political offerings while leaving a small number of operational maintenance jobs for the community. The electricity rate protection commitment aims to shift the backlash away from electricity bills, with enforcement power resting with state utility commissions. Money is flowing from chip and training budgets into gas and storage, with those who connect to the grid first getting trained first.
Comparative objects include New York State's moratorium, Texas's approval slowdown, local cold receptions for Alabama's forest projects, and Stargate nodes already under construction in places like Abilene. The industry position is that computing power expansion is colliding with the grid and ballots, with control shifting from governors' ribbon-cuttings to county councils' vetoes.
Structural changes involve regulatory shifts combined with capital concentration. The mechanism is that electricity and land become real constraints for AI; the president endorses projects with national security rhetoric, while locals vote on electricity prices with moratoriums. If the goose that lays golden eggs consumes all the excess capacity of power stations, the eggs will first appear in wholesale electricity prices.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
The front line of the computing power race is substations and county councils
Many jobs during the construction period, few votes during the operational period
Behind-the-meter power plants can isolate loads but cannot isolate water rights and landscapes