Badlands Media - Badlands Media Special Coverage - President Trump's Roundtable on Ratepayer Protection Pledge - 3/4/26

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

President Donald Trump hosts a White House roundtable with major technology leaders, administration officials, and lawmakers to unveil the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, an initiative designed to prevent rising electricity costs for American households as AI infrastructure rapidly expands. The discussion centers on the massive energy demands created by AI data centers and the administration’s strategy to ensure those costs are not passed on to consumers. Under the pledge, leading tech companies including Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon Web Services, Oracle, and XAI commit to fully funding the electricity generation and infrastructure required to power their AI facilities, including building new power plants and expanding grid capacity. Participants highlight how the agreement aims to expand American energy production while strengthening the power grid, creating skilled labor jobs, and positioning the United States to maintain global leadership in artificial intelligence. Officials emphasize that companies will pay for the energy their operations require and invest in local infrastructure, workforce training, and backup power systems for surrounding communities. Throughout the roundtable, speakers frame the pledge as a partnership between government, industry, and labor to support economic growth, AI innovation, and long term energy stability while protecting American ratepayers from increased electricity costs.

out of the badlands. Explain those bad lands. That's a hell of a name. Well, thank you very much. These are exciting times. I think you probably want to speak about war rather than this, but this is very important. This is very important. And we're doing very well on the war front, to put it mildly, I would say. Somebody said on a scale of 10, where would you rate it? I said about a 15. And we're going to continue to do well. We have the greatest military in the world by far. And that was a tremendous threat test for many years. 47 years, they've been killing our people

and killing people from all over the world. And I think we have great support. And I think if we didn't do it first, they would have done it to Israel and give us a shot if that was possible. And if we didn't terminate the worst deal, one of the worst deals ever made, the Obama nuclear deal,

I call it the Obama nuclear deal, where he gave everything to Iran, including a nuclear weapon. It was a road to a nuclear weapon. Bad things would have happened four years ago because they would have had a weapon four years ago if I didn't terminate that deal. So we're in a very strong position now.

And their leadership is just rapidly going. Everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead. And it's an amazing thing that's taking place before your eyes because for four, 47 years we were pushed around and we shouldn't have been. And I think I can say, and you see it as well as I do, you see the tremendous progress that's being made.

Their missiles are being wiped out rapidly. Their launches are being wiped out. They're attacking their neighbors. They're attacking their, in some cases, allies or not so long ago allies. And it's really a nation that was out of control and they would have used it on us if we'd like, let them, if we waited any longer.

A big factor was Salimani, the killing of Salamani in my first term. And maybe the biggest factor was the rebuilding of the military in my first time. And then the B-2s hit the, and I use the word obliterate, because it really was, it was a complete obliteration of their nuclear potential. And that set them back very, very seriously. If we didn't hit within 10,

two weeks, they would have had a nuclear weapon. If we didn't do the B2 attack a number of months ago, they would have a nuclear weapon. And when crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen. So we're in very good shape now. I want to let you know that, and we will continue forward. But it's a great display of military strength.

And I'm very proud to have with some of the people in the room, both senators and congressmen, we rebuilt and women. We rebuilt our. military during the first term. And we're using it a little bit more than I thought we would have to. Venezuela worked out really great. We have a wonderful relationship with the president and the various representatives. And we're taking out hundreds of millions of barrels of oil. And that goes to our benefit and to Venezuela's benefit. They'll be doing better than they've ever done before. And we will get a big piece of that and will also make life wonderful for the people.

of Venezuela who have been very, very badly hit. So that's a lot said in a short period of time, but you can witness it for yourself. And now we'll get onto something that I'm very proud of because it was sort of my idea, sort of my idea, like build your own power plant. And everybody thought I was kidding. They said, really, you can do that?

How would you do that? And I said, we'll get your fast permits, then you'll build your own plants, but we're gonna discuss it in great detail with the biggest people in the industry and some of our great leaders and senators and congratulations on the Medal of Honor for your 100 year soldier, you know,

100 years old, 101 to be exact. And Darrell's been fighting that he get the Congressional Medal of Honor for many years, Darrell, right? Mr. President, I give you all the credit for overcoming the lawyers in the Department of the Navy in a way that I thought was amazing. Yeah. We could have done it but you.

Maybe it'll be a long. We had to get it to him a little bit quickly, but he looks like he's in good shape. He's got some years left, right? He's planning him to come back here for your next Medal of Honor ceremony. And he's also going to be the star at Tail Hook this summer if you want to come to Reno. Well, I congratulate you for that success. That was amazing.

He didn't stop. I've known him a long time. He never stops. So congratulations. Very nice. We're here this afternoon for a historic signing that will help keep down utility bills very, very substantially and electricity prices for millions of Americans.

And in many cases, for a lot of people that don't really understand why they're going up, but they're not going to be going up. They're going to be actually going down. Today, we follow through on an announcement I made in my state of the union address last week as America's largest tech companies officially signed, the rate payer protection pledge.

It's a big deal. I'm going to have a tremendous impact on electricity costs. We're bringing down all of the costs. We have this little interlude to do what we have to do because we had it going. But these interludes are very important, especially this one. But the economy has never been like this. We've never broke 50,000 on the Dow.

People thought we wouldn't do that within the first four years. We did it in the first year. And we brought seven on the S&P, 7,000 on the S&P. They said that's even less likely to happen. And we did that too all within the first year. Under this new agreement, big tech companies are committing to fully cover the cost of increased electricity production required for AI data centers. And that would be prices for American communities will not go up,

but in many cases will actually come down and very substantially. because, you know, the data centers and you people are so big as you're the biggest in the world, but they've developed a little bit of a bad public, they need some PR help because people think that if a data center goes in, their electricity prices are going to go up, and that's not happening, it's not going to happen.

And for the areas where it did happen, it won't happen anymore because they never had this alternative. It's actually going to mean the prices come down. You're going to see how badly they want. Some centers were rejected by communities for that. And now I think it's going to be just the opposite. This means that the tech companies and the data centers will be able to get the electricity they need

all without driving up electricity costs for consumers. This is a historic win for countless American families and will also make our electricity grid stronger and more resilient than ever before. So that's part of it. It's going to be strengthened up. and they're going to be getting a lot of excess electricity from the data centers where they build their own plants.

They're going to be creating their own electricity. We're pleased to be joined today by Speaker Mike Johnson, who's got a difficult job, but he does it as easy as anybody I've ever seen do that job. It's never easy when you have a majority of two or sometimes less, right? Sometimes less, but he's amazing. And Energy Secretary Chris Wright,

who's worked so hard and senators Katie Britt, Bernie Marino, John Eustod. Thank you, everybody. Really great. Thanks, Katie. Representative Daralice and Derek Van Orden. Thank you both. And Derek, thank you. Nice to see you.

OSTP director Michael Kratios, AI and Cryptozar, David Sacks, as well as the commissioners of the Federal Energy Regul and regulatory commission and an audience in the audience. You have Laura Swett, David Rosner, Lindsay C, and Judy Chang, all very well-known people, especially in this group of geniuses. We have a lot of geniuses here, and a lot of geniuses that are also very strong people representing labor. We love labor. We love these guys.

I also want to recognize the industry leaders here to sign the pledge, and this is a pledge that's going to be a very important pledge to the country and to their companies also. They benefit also very substantial, including President of Google, Ruth Porratt. That's a good company. That's big stuff. Google, that's, you know, used to be US Steel

and things like that. Now it's Google other places. President of Meta, Dean Apparel, who was with me. Dina Powell was with me from me for a long time and I called up Mark and I said, congratulations, that was a good hire, right? That was a good hire. She's fantastic and her husband is fantastic.

He was a great senator and he ran in a place called Pennsylvania and he ran against somebody that was very tough to win. It was very, very tough to win. And he won pretty easily actually. People were shocked. I wasn't, you and I weren't surprised, but he's a spectacular man. President of Microsoft Brad Smith. Thank you, Brad.

It's good to see you. Microsoft is unbelievable. See you all of Open AI? Brad Lightcap, Brad, where are you, Brad? Brad, he's so young, look at how young. I think you have to be young in that world, perhaps. Thank you, Brad. CEO of Amazon Web Services, Matt Garman, Matt.

Thank you, Matt. Very well. Say hello to my friend, right? Doing a good job. CEO of Oracle play, moot squirk. Moose quirk. Is that fairly good?

I don't know. I'm not sure. I usually don't, man, I just go right over and I say moose quirk. But how are you? Thank you very much. Appreciate it. I give you a hard job, it's a hard name.

You did, you did good, you did well for the difficulty of that name. That's right, I think so. Thank you very much. And Gwen Shortwell, Gwen Shortwell of XAI, another real leader. Thank you very much, thank you, thank you very much, appreciate it and say hello, right? To a special person.

The last administration, their allies and Congress gave us the worst inflation in, I say the history of our country, They say 48 years. So I'll take either one. It doesn't matter. The press gets very upset what I say in the history of our country. They get very angry about it, actually.

They say it was only 48 years. They say, you know, in some ways 48 years sounds worse because it's very specific. But it sounds a little worse. But either way, take either one. And the ruinous energy policies were a big reason why many working families, utility bills increase more than 30 percent during the Biden administration. the worst administration in the history of our country. That's why on day one, I declared a national energy emergency.

We had no choice but to do that and signed an executive order to dramatically accelerate construction of new energy infrastructure, which we are doing at record numbers. And we're rapidly bringing down those costs, very rapidly. We inherited a mess. I say it all the time. We inherited a total mess. And in many cases, we've fixed it, but we're fixing it. And we'll always be fixed it.

We're going to make it better and better and better. Many Americans are still concerned that the massive energy demand from AI data centers could drive up their electricity bills in the future, and we understand that. By 2035 energy demand is expected to more than triple. Can you believe it? A lot of it is AI, and it's also all these big plants that are being built all over the country there, coming in from Canada and Mexico, from Germany, from Japan, from South Korea. They're all coming here to build cars again. We lost 54% of our car industry because we had presidents that honestly on trade and business.

They didn't know what the hell they were doing. I could say the same thing for the chip industry. We lost the chip industry, but it's all coming back. You could have stopped it so easy. All you would have had to do is put a charge, or a tariff on, if you want to leave the United States, that's fine. You can go to Taiwan or any way you want,

but if you're gonna make your product and sell it back in here, you're gonna pay 100% or 200 or 300% tariff. And nobody would have ever left, but they missed that opportunity, but it's not gonna matter now because it's all coming. They're all coming back. By 2035, energy demand is expected to more than triple.

Under the rate payer protection pledge, we're signing today, the big tech companies making five important commitments to keep utility prices down for American consumers. First, these companies are committing to provide or pay for all power generation and electricity needed for their AI projects, which is massive. And where possible, they'll add capacity to the grid

by building new power stations. So they're going to be making their own electricity. They're not going to be taking from the grid. And they will actually probably, based on what I'm seeing, they're building over capacity, and they'll be able to sell that over capacity at very low prices into the grid. In addition to that, we're fixing the grid.

Now, if we didn't do this, this was, I believe, I don't know, nobody's going to challenge you. You won't challenge me. I think this was my idea. I said, wait a minute. We can't, when I first got involved with AI, they said, we will need triple the energy.

Think of this, triple the energy of what we have now. Some people said double. I said whether it's double or triple, that's crazy. And that was just for AI. It is incredible. And when you see the buildings we're talking about, you start to understand it. But unless you saw buildings that go for miles,

buildings that are so big, buildings that cost $60 billion. I said, you mean $60 million when I first got involved. They said, we're building a $60 billion building. I said, you mean $60 million? 60 million is a big building. He's not that big, but it's pretty big nowadays. They said, no, no, sir, we're going to spend 60 billion,

but now it's like 100 billion and 150 billion. And the bottom line, it takes electricity like nobody's ever seen before. And I said, well, with an old grid, even if we fix it really well, which we're in the process of doing, you can't take that and double our electricity. They're going to have to build it themselves. And I told Mark, I actually told Mark, I told Elon.

I told people, and nobody believed me. They said, you're going to let us build our own electric? Because they've been so used to being beaten down and to have people with no ideas, no ideas how to solve problems, and then the whole thing fails. It's a whole disaster. They said, no, I'm serious.

And in one case, they submitted plans and they didn't do what I told them. And when I called them, I said, why don't you have your plant here? We thought you were kidding. Are you serious? You really? They couldn't believe it in a good way.

They said, it's too good to be true. And I said, no, it's not. And here's the other thing. You'll have your approvals within two, three, or four weeks. It used to take 20 years to get it prior to rejection. So in other words, you'd go 20 years prior to rejection. They'd vote. I've known many plans where they've been.

I knew people they started off young. They were young trying to get a point. approvals for a stupid plant, one plant. Their whole life was devoted to getting this plant. And around 22 years in one case, 22 years later, he got rejected. I said, that's not good. He wasted, let's say, half of his working life

on getting an approval and he didn't get, now we get it in two weeks, three weeks, maybe four weeks. When I came in originally in my first term, we had two big LNG plants in Louisiana. They were in the 14th year of getting approval. and they had just been rejected. And I got involved. They were tremendous plants.

They were up now. They were working beautifully. They built the third one. They're magnificent. I mean, if you're like pipes, this is a plant. The whole thing is you look inside. All of this is pipes. I've never said anything quite like it.

It's like lying two or three Empire State buildings on their side and doing nothing but putting pipes into it. So I didn't know exactly what it represented. All I knew is this is what they needed. And so I got involved. The first one I got done in one day, the second one, I was a little bit slower that week, and it took me one week.

So I got the first one done in one day, got fully approved. And when they called up the head, and I didn't want anything, I don't want anything for myself, I wanted for the country. When they called up the head of a company, like a Microsoft or like any one of the people in this room, but they called up the heads, they said, No, we got rejected.

No, you just got approved. It was one day and one week, and they were built, and they're in your state, by the way, right? And they are big, and they're doing great, right? And there are lots of pipes, right? That's all I noticed, I said, I've never said anything like. Anyway, so for these companies committing to provide or pay for all power generation electricity

and they needed for their AI projects, where possible they will add capacity to the grid. They're going to be adding a lot of capacity, and I think it's going to be really, and I've seen some power plants. I'm actually more interested in the power plant than I am in information. I said, where do you make the money for this?

They said, information. I said, okay, that's good. That's got to be a lot of information though, right? And it's turning out to be true. David, it better be true, because you've got a big bet. This country has a big bet on it. But it's incredible what they're doing

or what they're coming up with. Second, they'll cover the costs of upgrading existing power delivery infrastructure and their energy demand as it requires further investments. So they'll be upgrading existing power delivery infrastructure. They will, third, negotiate separate rate structures with utilities to clearly and cleanly assign them to the costs of new capacity investments and commit to paying, even if they do not end up using all of that electricity, They're going to make a commitment. So we're going to have a situation where you're not going to have increased electric bills for homes that are in the area or even outside of the area.

And fourth, they'll invest in the local communities where they build and operate, provide workforce development and jobs for skilled Americans like those with us today. We have great, great skilled people, electricians, engineers, HVAC, technicians, server and network technicians, power plant workers, plumbers, welders, and many others, all people that I've hired all my life, I've been hiring you guys,

and you've done a great job. I've built a lot of buildings, a lot of good ones. And finally, they will use their infrastructure to contribute backup power to local grids during times of need. So they're gonna have a lot of backup power. We're gonna have a lot of excess. Basically, we're building massive amounts of electricity,

and you're not paying for it at all. And the companies wanna do it, because this way they can, otherwise they couldn't build. I mean, the option really was not about cost. It was about, there's no way of possibly taking the old grid and doubling it in a matter of months or years. So in short, America's largest and richest tech companies will be funding a colossal expansion of US energy.

We'll have, I read where China is building tremendous energy. I know, I gotta respect it. But we're building similar amounts. We're building what we need, and we're building it through the private sector. We're building it through great companies. And I've seen some of the plants that these geniuses, they are real geniuses are showing. And I say, wow, that's really great. You're really doing things in terms of technology with electricity that, frankly, the standard, wonderful power companies probably aren't going to be getting there.

Maybe as you build them, they'll be start. but some of the plants that I've seen, Dina, are absolutely unbelievable. So they're going to be producing massive amounts of electricity and energy. The grid, so the American consumers aren't going to have to even think about it, and your electric costs are going to be going down. Now, unfortunately, they'll take a little time to get there, so they'll say, well, you know, I don't know who's going to follow me, but whoever is going to follow me is going to have some big advantage.

You know, it happened with Biden where we got a lot of approvals to things, but they take statutorily a year or two years. And I got one on medicine that was good, not as good as favored nations, which we just got. That's 80 and 90 percent drops, okay? Nobody's going to believe it. But I got one on various medicines, and it was good, but it doesn't kick in for two years. I said, I hope I win this election because I'm going to get so much credit. the election was rigged and stolen. And he stood up there one day getting credit.

He didn't even know what the hell he was talking about. He got the credit. He was talking about how he did this. And he had no idea what he was talking about, but we were the ones that got it. And I hate that. So this is going to happen again, because somebody's going to be getting a lot of credit

into the future. But this is really the pretty current future. This is going to go very quickly. This is going to happen almost immediately. The United States is leading the world in AI by a lot. We're leading China. We're leading everybody by a lot. Without this, you wouldn't even, I don't think you could build,

Brad, you couldn't build a plant, right? Without this, I don't think you could, you know, you'd have to rely on the grid, and you wouldn't be able to do that. So the United States is leading by a lot. We're leading everybody. And it's not only, you know, other countries are very much into it. They all want it.

But we're going to be dominant in this field, which is very important. In crypto, we want to be dominant. We want to be dominant in everything we do. And this agreement will ensure that America can maintain the most advanced AI infrastructure on the planet without American families being forced to pick up the tab. And that's why the early ones, they hook up to the electric utilities and they can't produce the kind of numbers electric-wise that they want. And they end up raising the rates. It's not going to happen anymore.

And now it's going to go the opposite way. They'll make a lot of money and electric grades. We actually think they're not going to say, I think they're going to actually, Chris, they're going to actually come down. So your electric bills will actually come down. It'll take a little while, but not long. So this new strategy never tried before in any country

will pave the way for continued American dominance and energy and technology working together. So you're going to have great energy sources because you're going to build them yourself. And if they're not good, you'll make them a little bigger and better, right? But again, a lot of people, it took me six months to convince people that I was serious about this.

And we have a very big key to what we're doing is Lee Zeldon. He's in charge of the environmental department and energy. And the job he's done is incredible, getting your fast approvals. So some of the plants are starting and they're coming in. I say, Lee, two weeks for natural gas. Don't worry about wind, forget it.

It's worthless. You don't get approvals for wind. We don't do wind in this because it's a loser. Except for China, they make all the windmills. China makes all the windmills. The only problem is they don't have wind farms. You ever think somebody's going to have to look at that? How many wind farms have you seen lately in China?

They make the windmills. They sell them to the suckers over in Europe. Europe is buying them by the thousands. And I told them for three years, this is not going to work out well. And now they're saying I was right. But we are, I say, natural gas, clean, beautiful coal. You know, we don't ever say in the Trump administration, you're not allowed to use the word coal

unless you proceed it by saying clean, beautiful. And Chris made a beautiful speech about three weeks ago. And he took me very, very seriously. And every time it was about coal. And every time he mentioned coal, it'd say, clean, beautiful call, clean beautiful, clean, beautiful. I said, Chris, easy. It sort of stepped in the speech a little bit.

It was a little much, but we got the point across. The coal is clean and beautiful. Well, look, it's so many of the nations that are working are using coal. And you can do things with coal today that are incredible in terms of the environment and in terms of plenty of this. But I said two weeks for oil and gas, coal, and for nuclear power plant, maybe take two or three weeks. can take add on an extra week. But Lee Zeldon has done an amazing job in getting you all of the permits that you need, because normally they would take many, many years, and they're already

building the plants that are being built all over the country, and they are incredible. So with that, I'll introduce Chris Wright, who's, we were lucky to get him. Doug Bergum convinced me he was the best guy. I wanted Doug Bergum for his position, and because I'm very impressed with Doug, he's doing a fantastic job. He said, there's somebody that's better than me on energy. I said, So a guy named Chris Wright. He's the biggest in the industry. He's the smartest. He's the best.

I say, really, he's better than you. And Doug has a very big ego. So for him to say that was not easy. But I met Chris and it was sort of love at first sight. He has done some job. And so is Doug. We gave him interior where they have all the oil. And we gave him energy where they take it.

Right? So we sort of did a friendly merger without. going through Congress because if we went through Congress it would never get done unless the Speaker wanted to get it done in which case it would be all right. So Chris you could say a few words first. You bet. First of all thank you all for being here today. The reason we're here and the things that are going to happen are because of the people in this room. I want to thank you Mr. President for your leadership very early on. I mean first week I'm in my new job. I haven't had a

boss in 40 years and I'm in the Oval Office adjusting to this. And the president says to me two things very clearly. He says, number one, we have to lead an AI. We have to lead. This is a transformative technology. America must lead an AI. And the old energy policies that we're going on would not lead in AI. We need to lead an AI.

Number two, the government's a bureaucracy. It's always in the way of things. It's been in the way of AI. We've got to run the government like a business. The businesses who want to invest are our partners and get them here right away. and we've got to work with those partners. And boy, we have seven incredible leaders in the room today. We're going to win an AI and we're going to stop the rise of electricity prices

because of the seven leaders that are sitting around this table. The president said you're going to work with them like business leaders. Ultimately, this is not a negotiation where one side wins and one side loses. We have the same interests. The interests of the businesses is to be embraced by the community so they can build and develop data centers in their own. communities. Those data centers that are developed there are going to bring jobs and opportunities for people. They're going to have us lead in artificial intelligence, critical for our economy,

critical for our national defense, and critical for our security. The nation that leads in AI will be the military superpower. That has been and must remain the United States of America. But this is a pivot and this is a transformation, and it's the bold leadership of the president and the bold, long-term vision of the business leaders that I am very proud to call partners and friends around this table and have invested that money, that have developed those technologies, that are willing to invest those dollars, and are also willing to fix the biggest problem. We had 30% electricity price rises during the Biden administration, and we shrunk our amount of available, dispatchable electricity. That is a train wreck waiting to happen. And the president recognized from

to start. We have to lead in AI and we have to stop electricity price rise. And those are not in contradiction. These companies are smart, they're powerful, they're strong, they can build power, partner with them. And that's exactly all of them embraced it. All of them have spent money to these noble causes. And as we heard, a number of states that have partnered with the people on this table, have announced multi-year rate freezes. Indiana's the leader now in the first one filing for a rate reduction, but it is the partnership of these companies and a business focused on government, focused on the American people that is the transformation. But I could not be more proud to be here. I've got to thank also our FERC commissioners that are here. Furk is a noble regulatory agency

that just got bureaucratic and lived in a different time at a different age. We need to make things happen fast. Could they stand up? Yes, can all the FERC commissioners stand up? Because you know, They're the most powerful people in the country. I have had more people who said, do you know FERC? I said, do I know FERC? What about FERC? And I learned so much about you. And you are the most powerful people in the country.

So we want to be very nice to you. Please get us approvals. Please get us those approvals. Okay. Thank you all very much. Thank you. The FERC team has worked hard, smartly, and practically to enable the revolution that's going to happen.

America leading an AI and stopping the price rises. Thank you all so much. And boy, one of the other things I'm crazy lucky about is to work as a partner with a guy who has the hardest job in the world and does it with a smile, does it with charm, and does it with grace. Speaker, Mike Johnson. Well, thanks so much, Ms. Secretary. Thanks to you all.

It's a great honor to be here with the leaders of tech and industry, the FERC commissioners. They are so very important. And all these folks who help all this happen. Only President Trump has the gravitas to be able to assemble the leaders of all these great companies in one room and also to conceive of an idea like the rate payer protection pledge. This is an idea whose time has come. I think it's going to be so well received around the country because let's be honest about it. There are concerns that people have had.

There's a lot of misinformation out there, Mr. Secretary, about the rise in energy demand and what that's going to mean for our community. So it is so meaningful to have leaders, the Titans, to come in and say, everybody be called. This is going to be great. It's actually going to be better going forward. Not only is America going to stay on top and lead and be the strong superpower that we are, we're going to continue to lead on AI. We're going to continue to make the communities better. I'm in the state of Louisiana. A lot of this is happening in Louisiana, Mr. President. It's not just a bunch of beautiful pipes. It's also data centers. Matt is doing a big one. And of course, Amazon's working in Louisiana and Stack and so many of the other companies.

And our communities are so grateful to have that investment and also grateful because they're coming in as great corporate partners, community partners. And they're acting responsibly. They're helping to build out the energy grid. And they're making life better, not just with good paying jobs. They're actually making life better in these communities and in our states. And so we're so grateful for that. I like what you said a moment ago. This is a win, win, win across the board.

You have everybody who's come to the table in good faith under the leadership of this extraordinary president to make. make this happen for the country. It's at the perfect time. Trust is not given by communities and local stakeholders. It's built over time. And I think this pledge is a huge part of building that important foundation for the future. America's back, Mr. President.

So excited about that, excited to be a part of this. Thanks so much for letting us be in. I think we'll go with John. Is that all right? John Yuson. Thank you, Mr. President. In places like Ohio, this is a very, very big deal. I know that you know well that if we

We want to have economic dominance and national security dominance. We need to have technological dominance. And AI and data centers are a big piece of that. And I know that the American people want to win. They want to win this just like you do. We want to be superior to our challengers like China. We want to have AI dominance because that helps give our military, our manufacturing, everybody across the country needs AI dominance.

if America wants to win. And I know you're the leader of the America First Agenda, you want America to win. But so do the people in places like Ohio, but they're concerned about energy prices, right? They know that they like those folks out there, the construction trades that build these, the plumbers, pipe fitters, HVAC, electricians,

the people that build the power plants, the laborers, the boilermakers, like these are working people in places like Ohio that do amazing work to build the data centers, to build the power plants, but people just are worried about their energy prices. And what you're offering today with the round table with the rate payer protection pledge, Mr. President,

is great leadership because this solves the problem that people were worried about. And as the data centers build new power plants, it leads to energy stability, affordable, reliable electricity for American rate payer, helping them win the affordability battle that you're leading on behalf of this great team that you've assembled. And I just want to say thank you for your leadership on this. Thank you very much, John.

And I hear you doing very well in your race. He's running for a very important seat in a great state that I like a lot. It's always been good to me and it's going to be good to you and it has been good to you. So good luck with that. Thank you, Mr. President. You're going to do good. Michael, please. Thank you so much, Mr. President.

You have been talking about this issue beginning as early as early as the campaign in July when we released AI action plan. This was a focal point of the speech you gave, talked about it again at the State of the Union. So this is a culmination of this idea that you've been working on for quite some time. And the key to all of this is that American AI leadership should never come at the cost of hardworking Americans

ability to pay their electricity bills. And Frontier AI that all of these great companies work on every day, along with the data centers that underlie them, are gonna accelerate to accelerate scientific discovery. They're going to unlock economic efficiencies. They're going to enable entire new industries to support the prosperity of all Americans. And to continue to lead in AI, these great companies need to make new data centers. We need new fabrication capacity. We need new manufacturing facilities and we need new power plants to be able to do all this great work.

And today, through this pledge, we are challenging all these companies to think bigger when it comes to data center construction by identifying ways that we can drive down the overall electricity costs, ultimately strengthen grid resilience, and to create more American jobs in the communities that choose to build all of these data centers. By signing this pledge, all these companies here are making themselves accountable to you, Mr. President, and to the American people as they strengthen their commitment to benefit in the communities in which they build and they operate. We as an administration are using every tool at our disposal to ensure that the U.S. can build

and maintain the largest, most powerful, and most advanced AI infrastructure anywhere on the planet. And today we recognize that building the future requires massive amounts of reliable energy. And I'm grateful to you, Mr. President, for acting so decisively to ensure that the growing demands of energy that we have are never passed to the American households.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Dana. Thank you, Mr. President. It's such an honor to be with you today. I also want to thank your outstanding team for partnering with us. You know, it's been remarkable to watch

this transformational moment and you positioning America to lead. Our country has had very big transformational movements before, whether it was coming together, World War II, or the Industrial Revolution, but this is different. The next three years, in many ways, sir, are the whole game.

And those three years, while you are president, you have positioned us to win. You have not only made sure that energy dominance is a key to how we will succeed in the compute needs we need, but you've also done something very important. You've made us all know that it's not about the products, it's about the people. And at Meta, we are so proud of the jobs

that we are creating, whether it is in Louisiana or in Ohio, so proud that it's not just extraordinary engineers, it is pipe fitters, it is welders, it is electricians. And I'm particularly proud, proud today to announce that partnering with Senator Moreno and Senator Hustead, we have launched a pilot in Ohio to train fiber technicians, some who are in this audience actually today, a very important skill set needed to build data centers. This four-week program is a new curriculum.

When you graduate, you have a license to be a fiber technician and a guaranteed job with META. We are also extremely proud to sign the rate payer, place. also in Louisiana as the speaker just said we have been able to lower the costs of so many Louisiana payers energy payers an estimated 650 million dollars over 15 years so we are proud to say today that we want to fully cover the cost of the energy that we use in our data centers create jobs and opportunities but more than anything sir we are really proud that we're going to look back and have had the privilege to work with you

and know that America won at such a critical time and that we did it really working with the American worker and so many others. So thank you, sir. Proud to be here with you. So nice. Thank you very much. I also want to say, sir, I forgot to say it.

You know, it was 10 years ago, way before we were talking about AI, that you said there is honor and dignity in plumbers and in workforce skills training. And you asked Ivanka, you know to chair that. Ten years later, we could not have imagined how much we needed all of those jobs and those programs and you marshaled the entire government to do it.

That is having an impact in cities across the country. So thank you very much. Thank you, very much. Thank you, sir. Ruth, please. Thank you, Mr. President. Google is grateful for all that you and your administration are doing to secure America's continued leadership in AI.

And to your point, it must be powered by abundant and affordable energy if it is to benefit all Americans. I'm pleased to be here to underscore Google's support for the rate payer protection pledge. We're committed to assist in all of your work to support American households, American businesses in this exceptional era of innovation. So four brief points how we will deliver on this for Americans.

First, adding to energy capacity, consistent with your call to build build, bring, or buy energy. We will meaningfully invest across America to bring new energy online, as you have stressed so frequently, to deliver the self-sufficiency that is core to this pledge. In Texas alone, we are adding, we have contracted to add more than 7,800 megawatts of net new energy generation and capacity to the grid as we grow our data center footprint. And very much to your point, we're committed to continuing to

invest to add capacity where we build. And to that end, we will very shortly close on an acquisition of intersect power, which is going to enable us to build data centers right next to those new additional power generation capabilities where possible. Second, to protect American ratepayers were committed not only to pay for 100 percent of the energy we use, but very importantly, the infrastructure to support that growth, whether or not we end up using that energy. And I think one example that brings that to life. I recently had the privilege of being in Arkansas with Governor Sanders. And our energy partner there, Entergy, announced that Google's investment covers the full energy costs associated with powering our data center, which contributes more than $1 billion back to Arkansas customers to reduce their electricity costs.

I think this is precisely what you were saying we need to do more of and we're committed to doing that. Third, I get very excited about the topic of workforce development, very much to your point, and the important topic of job creation. Every one job that we create in a Google data center gives rise to an additional nine jobs in the communities in which we are building that data center. Those are high skilled construction jobs, electrician jobs represented by so many of the amazing people here today. It's also jobs across the community in schools, in restaurants with small businesses.

And we announced in fact last week that we're providing free AI professional training for all small businesses across America. And given the clear need for electrical workers in America, we're particularly proud of the work we've led to create an electrician training program. And we're committed to train 100,000 electrical workers and 30,000 new apprentices across the country. On top of that, we're excited about significantly growing these programs. We've heard the pledge. Finally, Mr. President, as you said, the American grid needs to be more resilient. And so we're investing here as well. Two quick things.

We pioneered demand response with data centers. So we, with technology, will move workloads out of the way during extreme weather events to make room for the community. And second, we're applying AI itself to the grid to increase capacity in the grid. So again, I want to thank you. I want to thank you all for convening us. The benefits from AI responsibly delivered are immense for America's businesses, for America's communities, and for its citizens.

Thank you again for your leadership on this very important point. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Glenn? Thank you. That's why we're here. I want to thank you for your leadership.

Because of your work on this issue, I'm confident that we will win the race with AI with China and succeed in delivering inexpensive, abundant electricity for the American people. As you know, XAI builds huge supercomputers and data centers, and we build them fast. Currently we're building one on the Tennessee-Mississippi state line. As part of today's commitment, we will take extensive additional steps to continue to reduce cost of electricity for our neighbors. Mr. President, we want to be on your team to deliver a big win for the American people. XAI will therefore commit to develop 1.2 gigawatts of power as our supercomputer's primary

power source, and that will be for every additional. additional data center as well. We'll expand what is already the largest global megapak power installation in the world. The installation will provide enough backup power to power the city of Memphis and more than sufficient energy to power the town of South Haven, Mississippi, where the data center resides.

We will build new substations and invest in electrical infrastructure to provide stability to the area's grid. We will build state of the art, we haven't talked about that yet, but this is actually quite important. We will build state of the art water recycling plants that will protect approximately 4.7 billion gallons of water in the Memphis aquifer each year. And we will employ thousands of American workers from around the

city of Memphis on both sides of Tennessee, Mississippi border. We will also commit to deploying our AI technology to make people's lives better, creating a period of abundance where electricity becomes cheaper and people have access to the best goods and services humankind has ever seen. Finally, Mr. President, we commit to take these efforts into orbit. We are currently designing orbital data centers powered by the nuclear reactor in the sky. Launching supercomputers into space will mean even more energy on Earth as all the power plants that we're building now and power sources we've built will be available to the communities instead of the data centers.

I've been in space, I've been in the space industry for nearly 40 years, sir, and I have never things move more quickly than under your administration. So thank you for that. Mr. President, you've been strong and clear about building AI that benefits Americans and benefits American values, including demanding that AI is consistent with American values. In July 2025, you sign an executive order directing agency heads to support only those AI models

that prioritize truth-sinking and are ideologically neutral. We fully support that order, and we're fully on-threatment. with the rate payer protection pledge, and I'm really excited to be here. Thank you so much for your community. Thank you. Would anybody like to say something? We're finished with the official speakers,

but we have the most important people in the room and great people, political and otherwise. Would anyone have anything? Please, Darry? Perhaps as the California representative here, I can tell you how excited I am about your proposals. First of all, all of you have. All of you have major presence in California.

And not long ago, I visited the largest site of one that's not here today, Apple. It's in Reno, Nevada, Mr. President. It is 1,700 acres. It goes on, as you said, forever with buildings. It is doing a great job. It is one of dozens. Most of you also have centers being put up

in that same neighborhood just outside my state of California. The reason they're there, is the availability of power. And the story I just wanted to briefly say that says a lot about the current state versus where you're putting it with the help of industry. They have, what you would call huge, beautiful power plants, one after another that they have.

They built them for backup because in Nevada, they were able to get all the power they wanted, but they built in resilience there. They've only had to run them extensively when California calls and says we're having a blackout, would you please turn on your power generators so we don't go dark in San Jose miles away? That said so much to me about the responsibility of these companies already in the past, building backup power, but also the need to have the resilience that these plants will create

as a result of your work. And they won't be diesel plants, there'll be clean burning plants, they won't be temporary or back up, they'll be positive. Lastly, my state has invested in solar, so much so that we have it to burn during the day. Literally we burn it, we don't know what to do with it. The ability of these power plants to take solar when it's in excess and then provide that resilience 24-7, all as a result of your leadership. So as someone who is from a state that may build less of them,

but needs them more than any other state, I wanna thank you for what you're doing because these companies now can be empowered to do a lot more than what they did so far on the edge of California to help California be part of winning the AI race. Thank you very much. We'll go very quickly.

David, please. Thank you, sir. As I think all of you know here, We have an AI boom going on. We also have a construction boom going on. Just the leading companies in the US are investing $650 billion this year, building out this infrastructure.

That's a 2% tailwind to GDP. And that is leading to job increases for construction workers and huge wage increases for construction workers like the fellows we got right up here. So this is a very important boom to sustain. And thanks to your leadership, Mr. President, we're doing that and we're protecting residential rate

payers making sure that their electricity prices will not go up. That's the combination we need. And I just wanna contrast it, if I may, with the approach of Democrats like Bernie Sanders, their approach is just to ban. They just wanna ban the data centers. So they wanna stop the economic growth,

they wanna stop the wage increases for blue collars, they wanna stop the construction, they wanna just stop progress. That's not the answer, there's a much better answer, you have found it, sir. And I just wanna vouch for the fact that in one of our very first meetings, you did say that you wanted to make our AI companies into energy companies.

So that was, and I remember, I remember thinking that's a really good idea. The president knows more about AI than I do. So this is, thanks to your leadership, we're here today. I know this is something that you've been championing for a very long time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And Katie, thank you. Yes, Mr. President, so this is something that we've not only just talked about, obviously, on the national stage, but we've been talking about in wrestling with in Alabama as well. Look, we understand the need to win the AI race, and you have made sure that America is put first in every category. And that means that we dominate there. and we do it in a way, though, that helps everyday Americans.

So when we're looking at their safety and security and what that will ultimately prevail there, we don't want to do it at the expense of rate payers. And you, once again, have taken an incredibly complex problem that everybody wants to talk about, and you actually found a solution. You found a win-when. We're not only going to win the AI race as a result of what you're doing today, but you have said to every American, to every Alabamian, I see you. And we're going to make sure that your energy costs not only does not go up as a result,

but you even said today with the added capacity that it's actually going to go down. In addition to all of that, just want to say thank you to you for being willing to be good community partners. That's what makes all of this work. So the communities that you will ultimately reside in, you are saying we want to build you up in every sense of the word, giving you greater opportunity as a result of this pledge today. So Mr. President, thank you for making sure that Americans were put first

and that this progress is not at their expense, but is rather at their benefit. Yep, that's right. Very quickly, Dan. Mr. President, I have to tell you something, you're the only person in the world that could put together this coalition. You are the only person in the world.

I hope the American people understand what we're talking about here today. You're meshing high-tech with the hammer, putting these guys with the hard hats with the 100-pound brain nerds. And that's gonna be the few, sorry, I love you guys. And so Mr. President, the thing that the American people need to understand is that you're not thinking about the election cycle, you're thinking about the next generation. And what you're doing today by having this coalition of people is making sure that the future generations, our children, are not going to have to be concerned about losing a war.

And that means so much, especially in this time now, if people really take a step back and appreciate your, this is actual vision. leadership and it's going to take care long before or long after we're all gone sir your efforts today are going to make America great into the into the foreseeable future so thank you so much thank you Derek you're doing a great job Bernie I think you're okay you want to say something really fast bring thank you he gets my vote he gets my vote I have to go back and look at the war you know have a lot of things happening thank you Bernie you're doing a great job please Mr. Will Sharf.

Go ahead, Will. You have anything to say? I think it's been pretty comprehensively covered by all the speakers you've had today, sir, but you're going to be signing a proclamation announcing the rate payer protection pledge. This is going to ensure American AI dominance in the years ahead, while also ensuring

that American rate payers, ordinary Americans paying their electric bills, aren't paying anything more. And along with the proclamation that you're signing, each of the CEOs of industry representatives that we have present here will be signed an actual copy of the rate payer protection pledge, committing them to your vision for this industry going forward. Pretty good. Right? And let me say to the press, thank you so much for being here. It was fantastic. After the pledges are signed, if we can have you move out of the room as quickly

as you can so we can do a little bit of business, but thank you for being here at this thing. And as you heard, the summary of the Trump agenda is lower prices, higher wages. Okay, you got it done. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Pris. Self-care great again with All Good by Jessica Storm. Made in small batches by Jessica in Florida with only clean ingredients with purpose, zero junk, and packaged in amber glass jars, so it's all good inside and out. Start with the lightweight, pure whipped tallow for all over hydration.

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