‘maybe A Handshake Deal’: Trump’s Ai Pledge Still Thin On Details

The Trump administration is ramping up the sales pitch for its plan to shield Americans from data centers’ energy costs.

Still unclear: what exactly the administration is selling.

A day after President Donald Trump touted his proposal in the State of the Union, and a week before tech companies are expected to flock to the White House for a signing ceremony, even some Republicans pushing to prevent the AI boom from driving up electricity costs said they were still asking the administration for details. Companies including Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Meta and OpenAI were also silent on the specifics.

The unanswered questions included whether the administration has even finished negotiating with the tech industry on a deal requiring the data companies to shoulder their own energy costs. Nor was it clear whether that agreement, which Trump repeatedly described as a “pledge,” would be binding or have any force of law.

"Now the statement in the State of the Union is a great statement,” said Georgia state Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, a Republican at the center of a hotly contested legislative battle over data centers. “It is right now, I guess you would say, maybe a handshake deal. And so I hope that we would do something that codifies it."

Oklahoma House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, a Republican, called Trump’s announcement a step in the right direction. “We’ll continue to review the details to make sure Oklahoma families and businesses remain protected,” he said in a statement to POLITICO.

The voluntary agreements are expected to mirror pledges the companies already made with utilities and data center operators, said one person who spoke on background because they did not have permission to discuss the arrangement.

"I think this will be more like a public ceremony and a public commitment to be good citizens and to go about executing on this construction boom and data center boom in a way that does not flow negatively to consumers,” the person told POLITICO. “To the extent that it is binding, you're bound by your unwillingness to make the president angry, which is obviously a very powerful motivating factor in this administration."

But Democrats continued to scoff at the notion that Trump’s plan would do anything real to prevent ordinary Americans from paying for the costs of supplying the mammoth amounts of electricity to the nearly 680 U.S. data centers that tech companies have said they plan to build.

“Just another toothless, empty promise — this time on data centers — based on nothing but backroom deals with Trump’s billionaire buddies,” wrote New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a post on X.

California state Sen. Steve Padilla, a Democrat, offered light praise to the president on the announcement: “Skyrocketing energy costs driven by breakneck data center development hit every American and good for the President for recognizing that, but it will take more than a handshake and a photo op to ensure Big Tech pays their own way.”

Padilla authored a law passed last year requiring the California Public Utilities Commission to study how data centers impact ratepayer energy costs, and has two new bills aimed at protecting California ratepayers from increased energy costs coupled with data centers.

“We’ll keep pushing for legal protections in California,” he told POLITICO in a statement.

Data centers’ electricity costs have emerged as a potential problem for Republicans in this year’s midterms, especially after the issue roiled recent elections in Virginia, Georgia and New Jersey.

Energy analysts have also cautioned POLITICO that a plan like the one Trump has described would do little to limit the myriad ways that the rapid growth of AI hubs is raising electricity prices — including by tightening the competition for fuel, natural gas turbines, electrical equipment and access to the power grid.

The White House said Wednesday that Trump’s "ratepayer protection pledges” would put the onus on the tech industry to cover its own costs to power energy-hungry data centers. Those steps could include building their own power plants or paying for dedicated sources of electricity — a step that some tech giants are already doing as they seek to find the power needed to compete in the ferociously evolving AI market.

“Under this bold initiative, these massive companies will build, bring, or buy their own power supply for new AI data centers, ensuring that Americans’ electricity bills will not increase as demand grows,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement to POLITICO.

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle and OpenAI will participate in the event slated for March 4, as first reported by Fox Digital and confirmed to POLITICO by the White House. The effort is being driven by Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

In his speech Tuesday night, Trump said the tech companies “have the obligation to provide for their own power needs.”

“I’m telling them they can build their own plant,” he added. “They’re going to produce their own electricity.”

Wright told POLITICO after the speech that in addition to paying for their power generation, the tech companies would also “advance some money to add additions to the grid.” He didn’t say how much money that would entail or who they would pay it to.

Few tech companies have spoken publicly about the pledge, but a handful of tech leaders praised Trump’s plan to rein in consumers’ energy costs.

“The Ratepayer Protection Pledge is an important step,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement. “We appreciate the Administration’s work to ensure that data centers don’t contribute to higher electricity prices for consumers.”

James Burnham, general counsel at the Elon Musk-helmed company xAI, said in a post on X that he was “proud to be part of this initiative. @xai has never caused our neighbors' electricity bills to rise.”

Josh Levi, president of the Data Center Coalition, told POLITICO in a statement, “we appreciate President Trump’s focus on winning the global AI race, and we share his commitment to the continued responsible development of the data center industry, alongside a more affordable, reliable electric grid that serves all customers.” The industry group represents major data center developers including Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft.

Amazon, Anthropic, Google and Oracle did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment, and Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI declined to weigh in on the details of the agreement.

Hufstetler, the Georgia state lawmaker, told POLITICO he welcomes the White House-brokered agreements but wants more details on how tech will be kept accountable to their promises.

“I'm looking for something comprehensive that says we pay all our electricity, we pay our water, we pay our taxes, like everybody else does,” Hufstetler said, adding that states should still be able to put guarantees in place for their own citizens, too.

But having the president’s backing can go a long way in forcing industry's hand, he argued.

“If [tech companies] are hearing it from the federal government, and they hear it from the state government, I think it can work well in our favor to strengthen our laws, because they realize we're all wanting the same thing, that our consumers are protected,” he said.

Hufstetler re-introduced a bill in January meant to explicitly prevent power companies from passing rising costs onto consumers. But a Senate panel advanced a revised version Wednesday with fewer consumer protections — something Hufstetler was critical of.

In Oklahoma, Hilbert is backing a bill that would require energy providers and regulators to address rising energy costs resulting from data center demands, cryptocurrency mining and AI facilities. The measure unanimously passed the state House Utilities Policy Committee last week.

He and other Oklahoma legislators are also drafting legislation with a similar goal of requiring data centers to “pay their own way” in the state.

“We’ve been clear in Oklahoma that large-scale energy users must bear the cost of the infrastructure required to support their operations,” Hilbert said.

Caitlin Oprysko, Amelia Davidson and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.