President Donald Trump holds a graphic showing the size of Meta's new data center under construction in Louisiana in comparison to Manhattan during a cabinet meeting on August 26, 2025.Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty
On Monday, President Trump promoted continued data center construction and criticized opponents, despite growing bipartisan backlash ahead of the November midterms.
“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 posted on Truth Social. “If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame.”
The president also posts an endless stream of AI videos on social media. On Sunday night, he shared a video depicting the bombing of Kharg Island, a vital port for exporting Iran’s oil products amid the US resuming major strikes on the country. And the night before, Trump posted an AI video of himself kicking over a “Welcome to Lake Ontario” sign and planting down a “Welcome to Lake America” sign in its place.
But boosting AI and the data centers that help power them is largely unpopular. As my colleague Sophie Hurwitz wrote in May, most Americans oppose a data center in their backyard. From Sophie:
“Data centers need significant space, energy and water to operate, and they don’t provide many jobs relative to the investment they require. And they’re often unpleasant neighbors: their cooling systems can be noisy, and many include onsite gas turbines that belch black smoke into the air.
Opposition to data centers is truly bipartisan, even in solidly GOP states like Florida.
