“I was known for being a tough grader, but I would give them, on a curve, a D-minus,” Bessent said, adding the industry has been “tone deaf” to addressing the concerns of residents and local officials.
Bessent’s critical remarks offer a glimpse into the frustration within some parts of the Trump administration with the lucrative AI companies that keep spending freely to build data centers across the country. The $700-billion AI buildout carried out by large tech companies just this year has simultaneously provoked a wave of anger and indignation in communities concerned about the effect of data centers on their energy and water supplies.
A May survey from Gallup showed a larger share of Americans preferred living near a nuclear power plant to a data center.
‘Unhelpful marketing’
Bessent’s comments come three days after President Donald Trump instead pinned the blame for the bipartisan opposition against data centers on communities wanting “to end up being backwards and poor.”
Vice President JD Vance later offered his own perspective into what’s made data centers politically toxic in many communities, starting with the strain they place on aging power grids and the ensuing spike in electricity charges for residents living close to them.
“If you build the data center you should be putting power back into the grid, not taking it out,” Vance told reporters on Monday. “And if that is happening I don’t think the data centers are that controversial, it’s when the utility bills get so much higher that’s when it’s a real problem.”
Other observers also attributed the backlash to a spate of predictions from AI executives that the technology would wipe out millions of jobs as it is increasingly adopted by companies of all sizes and incorporated into their workflows.
“Of course AI will absolutely eliminate some tasks and compress some roles (and there’s some evidence that that may already be happening),” David George, a general partner at the investment fund Andreessen Horowitz, wrote in a May Substack post. “But the claim that AI will produce economy-wide, permanent unemployment is unhelpful marketing, bad economics and worse history.”
A U-turn from the AI industry
In recent months, AI executives have toned down their forecasts of mass job displacement in an apparent effort to build public trust and quell fears about the models they’re developing at a near breakneck speed.
