Trump urges data center developers to pay residents a dividend

President Donald Trump said data center developers should pay a "dividend" to the communities hosting their projects, endorsing cash payments as a route past local opposition. In a post on Truth Social, he wrote: "If companies want to make their data centers popular, pay the community, and/or individuals within the community, a 'dividend.'" He added that "data centers that were highly unpopular in a certain area have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck," and concluded developers should "MAKE DEALS, and get them built!"

Community payments themselves are not new. Developers have long made proffers to local government for infrastructure, environmental and social projects. Paying households directly is the newer move, which Data Center Dynamics ties to growing opposition to data center developments.

NorthPoint Development reportedly offered Hazle Township residents $10,000 each as part of its campaign to win permission for Project Hazlenut, a campus seemingly set to be leased to Amazon. Some local residents called the offer a bribe, Data Center Dynamics reported. In Kansas, Digital Realty offered every household in De Soto $1,000 in utility and property tax credits for ten years as it plans a 600MW campus across 1,440 acres outside Kansas City, according to the same outlet.

Trump's post also cited operators that cover their own grid infrastructure costs, reducing the risk that residential payers absorb the expense through utility bills. He said he had "mandated" the practice, though his Rate Payer Protection Pledge is not a regulatory requirement.

This publication reported that the 57-43 Senate vote on Oct. 1 left the national Ratepayer Protection Act three votes short of the 60 needed, after the House passed it 417-3.

A September report from the Bitcoin Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, proposed that operators pay a yearly dividend to every household in a county that hosts a data center.