Trump Tells Data Center Builders To Pay Neighbors If They Want The Projects Welcomed

President Donald Trump told data center builders early Wednesday to pay the communities around their projects if they want local support.

Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform, that if companies want their data centers to be popular, they should “pay the community, and/or individuals within the community, a ‘dividend.’” He said that new large data centers “are mandated by me to make their own electricity, and give or sell any excess back to the local community, or grid,” and that “there could be a substantial decrease” in electricity prices.

“I have watched the process closely, and Data Centers that were highly unpopular in a certain area, have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck,” the president added in the post. “MAKE DEALS, and get them built!!!”

Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and the Data Center Coalition — a trade group for data center companies — each did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment. The White House and Meta each did not immediately provide comments on the record.

The post comes about two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Wednesday found that 72 percent of Americans oppose building a new data center where they live, including 58 percent of Republicans.

The poll found opposition to a nearby data center was highest in rural areas, at 78 percent. Thirty percent of Americans said they support building more data centers in the country, a share that rose to 53 percent among MAGA Republicans.

Trump floated a data center “dividend” Sept. 29, the day he hosted technology executives at the White House, telling reporters that “a dividend sounds right,” Newsweek reported.

“Data centers are bringing in a tremendous amount of money into the community, and the people now are going to benefit directly,” he said at the time, according to the outlet.

A Kansas City, Missouri-based developer has already offered Pennsylvania residents the kind of payment Trump is talking about. NorthPoint Development said in a June 24 release that each eligible Hazle Township household would get a $10,000 grant once the first building of Project Hazelnut, its planned data center campus there, receives its certificate of occupancy, which the company expects in late 2027.