Trump Wants Tech Giants to Pay for Power. They’d Love To. | Bloomberg Businessweek
January 17, 2026
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30:15Now PlayingTrump Wants Tech Giants to Pay for Power. They’d Love To. | Bloomberg Businessweek
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US President Donald Trump is calling for an emergency wholesale electricity auction that, his administration says, will force technology companies to pay for the new power they need to run massive AI data centers under construction across the country.
The truth is Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., OpenAI and all the other major tech firms behind the AI data center boom are more than happy to shell out for more electricity generation. And they have been.
Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars on capital investments annually, far exceeding the budgets of the entire utility segment. Data center developers have in fact already said they’d like to buy electricity off the nation’s power grids as opposed to signing contracts directly with power generators. That’s because grid rates can be cheaper, grids are equipped with backup resources and such systems can help stabilize supplies during extreme weather events. Hyperscalers have also been signing contracts to help bring back nuclear or build new nuclear.
Either way, the reality is tech companies have been trying to secure power from every source they can find — both on and off the grids — with data center power demand set to triple by 2035.
Today's show features:
Bloomberg News Senior Editor for Technology & Strategic Industries Michael Shepard on the White House working with a group of Northeastern state governors on an emergency wholesale electricity auction to push technology companies to fund new power plants
Lesley Marks, Chief Investment Officer, Equities at Mackenzie Investments, on where investors should be seeking returns in 2026 and the biggest risks to markets
Maja Vujinovic, CEO of Digital Assets at FG Nexus, on recent volatility in the cryptocurrency sector and key indicators for 2026
David George, Senior Research Analyst at Baird, recaps big bank earnings and looks ahead to another big week for the financial sector
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