President Trump Rips New York Data Center Ban
The president urged New York to reverse its ban, calling data centers ‘liquid gold’ in a July 15 Truth Social post.
WASHINGTON, July 16, 2026 – President Donald Trump is blasting New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) recent decision to sign an Executive Order creating a one-year pause on hyperscale data centers.
In a July 15 Truth Social post, Trump said the state had made a terrible decision. The president wrote, “Governor Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has terminated all data centers being built or to be built in New York state … New York should change its policy immediately.”
In the post, Trump further explained that data centers are “liquid gold” because centers offer economic opportunity, bringing jobs and money to the states the facilities are built in. He said, “Data centers are tremendous wins for the states and communities that are lucky enough to get them.”
In his second term, the president has made AI a top national and economic security priority. In December, the president signed an Executive Order to create a national standard for artificial intelligence, warning states not to regulate the AI industry.
However, state lawmakers have pushed back against this, with at least a dozen states proposing data center moratoriums. The moratorium proposals have not made it past the legislature in most states, but some counties and municipalities have imposed their own temporary bans.
Earlier this year, Maine was poised to become the first state to institute a moratorium for more than a year on data centers above a certain size. Gov. Janet Mills (D) vetoed the bill in April, saying that the bill failed to carve out room for a project in Jay, Maine that would bring jobs to a struggling community.
Hochul signed the executive order after the New York legislature passed a bill in June, imposing a one-year moratorium on data centers. The governor has not signed the bill and raised the proposed 20-megawatt threshold to 50 MW in the executive order.
