"The pledge is nonbinding and unlikely to bring immediate relief on electricity bills. Making it real will fall to utilities and regulators."

"In an effort to quell blowback on data centers, President Donald Trump announced at a White House roundtable on Wednesday the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” a set of nonbinding promises that Big Tech companies signed to keep household utility bills from skyrocketing.

“They need some P.R. help,” Trump said of the data centers, “because people think that if a data center goes in, their electricity prices are going to go up, and that’s not happening. It’s not going to happen.” 

The announcement comes after Trump’s State of the Union promise last week that tech firms would “provide for their own power needs” by building on-site power generators or securing their own dedicated supply.

For years, Big Tech mostly powered data centers by plugging into the electric grid, but the recent boom in data-center demand is now adding to utility costs for regular customers. And their concerns have become a hot issue for the upcoming midterm elections in November."

Rambo Talabong and Charles Paullin report for Inside Climate News March 4, 2026. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"Few Details on Trump’s Plan for Self-Powered Data Centers" (Inside Climate News) [3]

"Showdown Over Datacenter Politics At Heart Of North Carolina Primary" (Guardian) [4]