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, uh, 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 to us 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, uh, seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead and it's uh, it's an amazing, amazing thing that's taking place before your eyes because for 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 launchers are being wiped out, they're attacking their neighbors, they're attacking -- they're in some cases allies or not so long ago allies and you know it's really a nation that was out of control. And they would have used it on us if we let them, if we waited any longer.
A big -- a big factor was Soleimani, the killing of Soleimani in my first term. And maybe the biggest factor was the rebuilding of the military in my first term. And then the B-2s hit them, uh, 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 two weeks, they would have had a nuclear weapon. If we didn't do the B-2 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, uh, it's a great display of military strength, and I'm very proud to have with some of the people in the room, uh, 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. And they'll be doing better than they've ever done before. And we will get a big piece of that and we'll 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 on to something that I'm very proud of because it was sort of my idea -- sort of my idea like --
-- Very much so.
Build your own power plant. And everybody thought I was kidding, they said really? You can do that? How would you do that? I said we'll get you fast permits and you'll build your own plants. But uh, we're going to 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, uh, 100 years old, 101 to be exact. And Darrell's been fighting that he got the Congressional Medal of Honor for many years, Darrell, right?
Mr. President, I give you all the credit for overcoming the, uh, the lawyers in the Department of the Navy in a way that I thought was amazing. Yeah, and nobody could have done it, but you.
Maybe it'll be a long -- we had a -- 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 to, uh, come back here for your next Medal of Honor ceremony and -- and he's also going to be the star at Tailhook 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 ratepayer 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 -- we had it going.
But these are -- 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 to all within the first year.
Under this new agreement, Big Tech companies are committing to fully cover the costs 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 very substantially because you know the data centers and you people are so big, you're the -- the biggest in the world.
But they've developed a little bit of a bad public -- they have -- they need some PR help because people think that if a data center goes in there, 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, 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. [Laughter] Yeah, I was going to say sometimes less, but he's -- he's amazing.
And Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who's worked so hard; and Senators Katie Britt, Bernie Moreno, Jon Husted, thank you everybody, really great. Thanks, Katie. Representative Darrell Issa and Derrick Van Orden, thank you both. And Derrick, thank you. Nice to see you. OSTP Director Michael Kratsios; AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks; as well as the commissioners of the Federal Energy Regulation and Regulatory Commission and an audience -- in the audience.
You have Laura Swett, David Rosner, Lindsay See 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 substantially including president of Google, Ruth Porat. That's a good company, that's big stuff, Google, that's -- you know, it used to be US Steel and things like that. Now it's Google and other places.
President of meta Dina Powell, who is with me -- Dina Powell was with 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 -- he's 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 were we? But he's a spectacular man. President of Microsoft, Brad Smith. Thank you, Brad. It's good to see you. Microsoft is unbelievable.
COO of OpenAI, Brad Lightcap. Brad, where are you, Brad? Brad, you're so young. Look at how young. [Laughter] 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, Clay Magouyrk, Magouyrk.
Is that fairly good? I don't know. [Laughter] I'm not -- I'm not sure. I usually don't -- I just go right over it and I say Magouyrk. But, uh, how are you? Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
I give you a hard job, it's a hard name. You did -- 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 Gwynne Shotwell -- Gwynne Shotwell 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 in Congress, gave us the worst inflation in, I say, the history of our country, but they say 48 years.
So I'll take either one. It doesn't matter the press gets very upset. When 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 increased 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 fixed it, but we're fixing it and we'll always be fixing 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 plans that are being built all over the country. They're coming in from Canada and Mexico, from Germany, from Japan, from South Korea. They're all coming here to build cars again. You know, we lost 54 percent of our car industry because we had presidents -- 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. He 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 anywhere you want. But if you're going to make your product and sell it back in here, you're going to pay 100 percent or 200 or 300 percent tariff and nobody would have ever left.
But they missed that opportunity, but it's not going to matter now because it's all coming. They're all coming back. By 2035, energy demand is expected to more than triple. Under the ratepayer protection pledge we're signing today the Big Tech companies are 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 or 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 -- $ 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. It'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, uh, 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 electricity 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. I 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, they 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 go 20 years prior to rejection, they'd vote. I've known many plants where they've been.
I knew people they started off young -- they were young trying to get 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 approvals and they had just been rejected and I got involved. They were tremendous plants. They were up now. They're working beautifully.
They built the third one, they're magnificent. I mean, if you like pipes, this is a plant. The whole thing is you look inside all it is, is pipes. I've never seen 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. 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. They were -- and when they called up the head and I didn't want anything, I don't want anything for myself.
I want it 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.
Yes, sir. Lots of pipes.
And there are lots of pipes, right? [Laughter] That's all I noticed. I said I've never seen anything like that anyway. So for these companies committing to provide or pay for all power generation, electricity 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 -- than I am in information I said. Where do you make the money for this? They said information. I said, OK, 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 got a big bet.
This country has a big bet on it, but it's, uh, it's incredible what they're doing and 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 investment. 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, uh, 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 built a lot of buildings, a lot of good ones. And finally they will use their infrastructure to contribute back up power to local grids during times of need. So they're going to have a lot of backup power. We're going to 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 want to 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 will have -- I read where China is building tremendous energy and I got to 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 -- 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 smart, but some of the plants that I've seen, Dina are -- 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, it will 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 for 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 -- that's 80 or 90 percent drops, OK? 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.
And 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.
[Gap in video]
-- 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 -- 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 -- 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, you know, 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 rates.
We actually think they're not going to stay. I think they're going to -- actually, Chris, they're going to actually come down election. 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 in energy and technology working together.
So we have a very big key to what we're doing is Lee Zeldin. He's in charge of the environmental department and energy and the job he's done is incredible getting you 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, don't -- 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, you know, China makes all the windmills. The only problem is they don't have wind farms. You ever think somebody is 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 precede 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's a clean, beautiful coal, clean, beautiful coal clean. I said, Chris, easy. [Laughter] It sort of -- just sort of stepped on his speech a little bit.
It was a -- it was a little much. [Laughter] But we got the point across they call this 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 cleanliness. But I said to two weeks for oil and gas, coal and for nuclear power plant, maybe take two or three weeks.
You can take add on an extra week. But, uh, Lee Zeldin has done an amazing job in getting you all of the permits that you need because normally that 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, uh, Chris Wright, who's -- we were lucky to get him.
Doug Burgum convinced me, he was the best guy. I wanted Doug Burgum 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 who? A guy named Chris Wright. He said 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. [Laughter] So for him -- 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 put 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 please.
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 in AI. We have to lead. This is a transformative technology. America must lead in AI and the old energy policies that were going on would not lead in AI. We need to lead in AI. Number two, the government and 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 in AI and we're going to stop the rise in electricity prices because of the seven leaders that are sitting around this table.
Um, the president said you're going to work with them like a business leaders. Ultimately this is not a negotiation where one side wins and one side loses. We have the same interest, the interest 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 that 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 percent 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 the start, we have to lead an 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 multiyear rate freezes.
Indiana is 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 FERC -- FERC is a noble regulatory agency that just got bureaucratic and lived in a different time and a different age.
We need to make things happen faster.
Could they stand up?
Yes. Could all the FERC commissioners stand up.
Because you know they're the most powerful people in the country and -- Thank you. I have had more people say, 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. [Laughter] OK. Thank you all very much. Thank you.
The team has worked hard smartly and practically to -- to enable the revolution that's going to happen, America leading in 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, Mr. 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. Look, only President Trump has the gravitas to be able to assemble the leaders of all these great companies in one room and -- and also to conceive of an idea like the ratepayer 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 calm. 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. Uh, it's also data centers. Meta is doing a big one. And, uh, of course, Amazon is 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 state. 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 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 is back, Mr. President. I'm so excited about that, excited to be a part of this. Thanks so much for letting us be it. Yeah.
Thank you. I think we'll go with John, is that all right? John Husted?
Thank you, Mr. President. In places like Ohio, this is a very, very big deal. Uh, I know that you know well that if we want to have economic dominance and national security dominance, we need to have technological dominance and -- 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. Uh, 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 -- those folks out there, the -- the construction trades that build these, the plumbers, pipefitters, 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 -- their energy prices and what you're offering today with the -- the round.
This round table with the ratepayer protection pledge, Mr. President, is great leadership because this solves the problem the people were worried about. Uh, and as the data centers build new power plants, it leads to energy stability, affordable, reliable electricity for American ratepayers, helping them win the affordability battle that you're leading on behalf of, uh, this great team that you've assembled.
And I just want to say thank you for your leadership on this.
Thank you very much, Jon, and I hear you're 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.
Going to do well. Michael, please.
Thank you so much, Mr. President. You have been talking about this issue beginning as early as the campaign in July when we released the 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 -- 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 going 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 cost, 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 benefiting the communities in which they build and they operate. We as an administration are using every tool at our disposal to ensure that the US 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. Dina.
Thank you, Mr. President. It's such an honor to be with you today. Um, I also want to thank your outstanding team for partnering with us. You know, um, it's been remarkable to watch this transformational moment and you positioning America to lead our country has had very big transformational moments 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 -- 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 pipefitters. It is welders, it is electricians and I'm particularly proud today to announce that partnering with Senator Moreno and Senator Husted.
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 ratepayer pledge today.
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 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 opportunity.
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 in 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.
It's so nice. Thank you, very much.
I also want to say, sir, I forgot to say it. You know, it was ten 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, as 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 Ratepayer 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, bring or buy energy. We will meaningfully invest across America to bring new energy online as you have stressed so frequently to deliver this self-sufficiency that is core to this pledge.
In Texas alone, we are adding -- we have contracted to add more than 7800MW 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 jobs across the community in schools and restaurants with small businesses.
And we announced 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 training 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. You're doing a great job.
Thank you, sir.
Gwynne?
Mr. President, I want to thank you for your -- thank you -- and I want to thank you for your leadership because of your work on this issue, 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 costs 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 1.2GW of power as our supercomputers primary power source and that will be for every additional data center as well. We will expand what is already the largest global megapack power installation in the world.
The installation will provide enough backup power to the city to power the city of Memphis and more than sufficient energy to power the town of Southaven, 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 seen 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 is -- that benefits Americans and benefits American values including demanding that AI is consistent with American values. In July 2025, you signed an executive order directing agency heads to support only those AI models that are -- that prioritize truth seeking and are ideologically neutral.
We fully support that order and we're fully on board with the Ratepayer Protection Pledge and I'm really excited to be here. Thank you so much for your commitment.
Thank you very much. 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, Darrell?
Perhaps as the California Representative here, I can tell you how excited I am about your proposals. First of all, 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, they'll be clean burning plants.
They won't be temporary or backup. They'll be a 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.
And so as someone who is from a state that may build less of them but needs them more than any other state, I want to 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. Uh, 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 percent 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 ratepayers, making sure that their electricity prices will not go up. That's the combination we need. And I just want to contrast it if I may. With the approach of Democrats like Bernie Sanders, their approach is just to ban.
They just want to ban the data centers so they want to stop the economic growth. They want to stop the wage increases for blue collars. They want to stop the construction, they want to stop progress. That's not the answer. There's a much better answer. You have found it, sir, and I just want to 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 true and I remember thinking that's a really good idea. The president knows more about AI than I do. So this is -- this is thanks to your leadership we're here today and I know this is something that you've been championing for a very long time.
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 and 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 every day 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 ratepayers. 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-win. 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 -- 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 -- to their benefit.
Yep, that's right. Very quickly, Derrick.
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. You're putting these guys with the hard hats with, with the 100-pound brain nerds.
And that's going to -- that's going to be the future. 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 an election cycle, you're thinking about the next generation. And what you're doing today by having this coalition of people is, 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 this is -- this is actual visionary 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, Derrick. You're doing a great job. Bernie, I think you're OK. You want to say something really fast, Bernie.
Thank you.
He gets my vote. He gets my vote. I have to go back and look at the war. You know, I have a lot of things happening. Thank you, Bernie. You're doing a great job. Please. This is Will Scharf. Go ahead, Will. Do 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 Ratepayer Protection Pledge. This is going to ensure American AI dominance in the years ahead, while also ensuring that American ratepayers, ordinary Americans paying their electric bills aren't paying anything more.
And along with the proclamation that you're signing, each of the CEOs and industry representatives that we have present here will be signing an actual copy of the Ratepayer 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.
You got it done. That's a good one. It's a good one. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, press. Thank you very much.