He reiterated a familiar attack line, claiming that communities that reject data centers are choosing poverty, even as Americans remain broadly opposed to the spread of the facilities. More than half of Americans said data centers had a negative effect on the environment and home energy costs, according to a Pew Research Center poll published on Sept. 22.
“Look, the data centers make a lot of money,” Trump said, citing the example of boosted tax revenue flowing to government coffers in Loudoun County, Virginia. “I said, if you want to be poor, you want to have no money, if you don’t want to have a job, and if you want to live in a crime-infested area, squalor, all the things that go along with it, you should not have a data center.”
He continued: “I do notice that so many politicians are against them, but I don’t change. If we don’t build them, they’ll be built someplace else. I know China is totally over it.”
Trump’s financial stake in the AI buildout
Even as the president touts the importance of data centers, he has also attracted scrutiny for maintaining a financial stake in companies involved with the AI buildout. It has generated a mountain of conflict-of-interest concerns from Democrats and ethics watchdogs.
Trump’s accounts made over 3,700 stock trades in the first quarter of 2026, according to a May disclosure filed with the Office of Government Ethics. He bought at least $1 million in shares of Nvidia, Oracle and Microsoft, three companies heavily intertwined with the AI buildout.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog, released a report on Oct. 1 indicating that by the end of 2025 Trump held between $2.9 million and $9.5 million in companies that operate data centers or supply them with necessary equipment.
A White House spokesperson maintained that the president has no conflicts of interest. The spokesperson added that the president’s holdings are kept in discretionary accounts and invested in portfolios that automatically duplicate major indexes.
“Neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence, or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in an emailed statement to Moneywise.
The data center midterm hot potato
Like Trump, Republicans largely began as champions of data centers, along with many Democratic lawmakers. The GOP even strengthened a tax break in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would help accelerate data center development in rural areas.
However, Republicans and Democrats have taken action against data centers as public outrage has grown against their rapid construction. Notably, Republican Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio spearheaded the Ratepayer Protection Act in the Senate. The bill would encourage state utility regulators to shield consumers from price increases associated with data centers. Husted is facing a competitive election against former Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic challenger.
The bill failed to clear a procedural hurdle on Sept. 40 in a 57-43 vote with only four Democrats siding with every Republican senator in support. Democratic senators voted en masse against the legislation, deriding it as voluntary and toothless.
Joseph Zeballos-Roig is a policy and politics journalist based in Washington D.C with a focus on economics. He is experienced in connecting the significance of events in the capital to the lives of everyday Americans whether its taxes, tariffs, interest rates or federal programs.
