Trump says he and Microsoft have a solution to AI-related utility price spikes

President Donald Trump did what he does Monday night and posted it on his social media appthis time on how Microsoft is not going to drive up our bills by massively creating new energy demand with its AI projects.

First, the president says he “never wants Americans to pay higher electricity bills because of data centers,” which is a good idea, although someone should tell him that what he fears seems to have already happened. Regardless, what he’s planning with Microsoft is, he says, the first in a series of energy-related projects with big tech companies. To this end, he writes:

“The first is Microsoft, who my team has worked with, and which will make major changes starting this week to ensure Americans don’t “foot the bill” for their energy use, paying higher utility bills. We are the hottest country in the world and number one in AI. Data centers are the key to this boom and keep Americans FREE and SECURE, but the big tech companies that build them must “pay their own way.” Thanks and congratulations to Microsoft. More to come soon!

As Gizmodo wrote last summerdemand for electricity from massive data centers used to train and run AI models has driven up the average American’s electricity bill, and the amount varies from place to place. On average, consumers’ energy bills had risen about 6.5% in a year when this story broke over the summer, but, for example, in Maine they climbed an astonishing 36.3%, and that’s believed to be due to the “AI tax.” In the meantime, utility companies as Pacific Gas and Power have posted record profits in recent years. It’s funny how that works.
How Trump and Microsoft will solve this problem is anyone’s guess. Trump has been making overtures recently toward apparent economic populism — seemingly in the form of deals he can tout for a short-term victory, as when he asked Novo Nordisk to lower the price of Ozempic. Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee followed this mysterious agreement with a letter to Novo Nordisk questioning what might have been included in the still-secret terms of that deal, including troubling ambiguity about future prices for other drugs. But who wants to hear about the stupid letter from the Democrats when President Deals managed to reduce the price of what he nicknamed “the big drug”?

But keeping energy bills low is a difficult task for Microsoft since, unlike Novo Nordisk, Microsoft doesn’t actually set the price that Trump is trying to keep low. So Trump could have demanded that Microsoft simply subsidize everyone’s energy bills. That would do the trick, but last time I checked Microsoft wasn’t a charity.

However, it was reported six days ago that Microsoft was already working with Midcontinent Independent System on a project aimed at modernize the electricity grid with Microsoft technology. Reuters writes that Microsoft’s technology will help “predict and respond to weather-related disruptions to the power grid, transmission line planning and the acceleration of certain operations.”

This doesn’t seem like a silver bullet for dramatically reducing energy costs, but it’s easy to imagine broader grid modernization, at least dispersing price increases more evenly, or even helping to integrate unused renewable energies and alleviate the notorious bottlenecks caused by an outdated energy network. But is this, or something like it, what Trump is referring to? For its own sake, I hope not, because this seems like the kind of confusing and convoluted plan more usually associated with struggling Democratsnot with Mr. Cheap Ozempic.

Gizmodo has contacted Microsoft and the White House for more details on this plan. We will update if we receive a response.