Bill Gates warns tech giants that data center expansion cannot raise household power costs

Bill Gates publicly warned Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and other major tech companies that their data center expansion plans cannot proceed if they raise household electricity costs, speaking with unusual directness on CNBC. The warning reflects a dramatic shift in the political and economic landscape: 48 data center projects worth $156 billion were blocked or stalled in 2025, and public opposition has intensified dramatically, with a Gallup poll showing 70% of Americans oppose data centers near their homes—worse than nuclear energy ever polled. Gates noted that the post-war utility model, where regulated utilities absorbed infrastructure costs and spread them across ratepayers, is now defunct. In March, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI signed a Ratepayer Protection Pledge at the White House committing to cover new power generation costs, but Gates emphasized that signing was the easy part; implementation requires genuine community permission, not just permits. Gates also broke from industry messaging by acknowledging that job displacement from AI is coming and that denying this reality to a already-skeptical public is counterproductive.