Bernie Sanders and a string of newly elected Democrats are pressing for moratoriums on data center construction after the midterm elections, putting fresh pressure on the tech industry's multitrillion-dollar push to build the facilities that run its AI products.
Resistance to the facilities ranked among the most visible issues of the campaign. Candidates across the country ran against them, and voters approved dozens of local ballot measures meant to restrict projects. The Democratic sweep that delivered control of Congress was fueled in part by backlash against the tech industry.
Sanders took to X this week to demand an immediate national moratorium, accusing Big Tech oligarchs of damaging the environment, cutting jobs and endangering humanity's future.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, where Elon Musk's SpaceX has proposed a data center covering more than 700 acres, wrote Wednesday on X that Democrats should make three things their first-day priorities: pausing advanced AI development, regulating the industry and banning artificial superintelligence.
Musk ridiculed her post in a retweet, and the two traded barbs, with Ansari predicting congressional hearings. Musk had spent nearly half a billion dollars supporting Republicans, and on election night he joked that data centers in space were starting to look appealing.
The calls are also coming from statehouses. Newly elected governors in Texas and Georgia, two states central to the buildout, have backed moratoriums. Gina Hinojosa, elected governor of Texas, where many of the facilities are going up, promised to freeze new projects until protections are in place, arguing that Texans currently have no rules or laws shielding them.
We need to stop what we are doing with data centers until we have those protections.
Gina Hinojosa, Texas governor-elect
Data centers came up repeatedly in Democratic victory speeches. New Hampshire Senator-elect Chris Pappas thanked voters for fighting large facilities he said hurt communities, New Mexico Rep. Gabe Vasquez vowed to stop what he called the AI billionaire class, and Ohio Senator-elect Sherrod Brown told supporters he works for Ohio, not data centers. Several winners pledged to give local communities the final say.
In New Mexico, Democrat David Mooney, who unseated Republican state Rep. Rebecca Dow, said he will push in January for a moratorium of at least 18 months and a law allowing new data centers only if a majority of affected residents approve. Projects are proposed or underway in all three counties his district covers, and he expects a hard fight.
The industry is uneasy. Meta president Dina Powell McCormick said the results will make data centers harder to build, and worries about new rules such as construction pauses helped drive a steep selloff in AI stocks this week.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said he was confident construction would continue, arguing the ballot initiatives would mostly leave existing projects untouched.
