Trump Wants Tech Giants to Pay for Power. They’d Love To (1)

Jan. 16, 2026, 9:37 PM UTC

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.

“They have no shortage of money,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Anurag Rana of the tech ...

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