David Sacks wants the companies building the AI future to also foot the bill for powering it. The former White House AI and Crypto Czar, now co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, has been pushing a straightforward proposition: if AI companies need massive amounts of electricity for their data centers, they should pay for the grid upgrades themselves rather than passing those costs to families.
The Ratepayer Protection Pledge
The centerpiece of Sacks’ push is the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge,” announced on March 5, 2026. Seven of the largest tech companies in the world signed on: Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI.
The pledge commits these firms to covering the costs of new power generation needed for their data centers. That means constructing new generation capacity, upgrading infrastructure, and, crucially, remaining liable for any capacity they build but don’t end up using.
Sacks has argued the arrangement could actually lower electricity rates for nearby communities. The logic: data centers need reliable, large-scale power generation. When those facilities produce more electricity than the AI workloads consume, the excess can be sold back to the grid at competitive prices.
An industrial revolution in kilowatts
AI infrastructure investment is projected to climb from $800 billion in 2026 to $1.4 trillion by 2027. Sacks himself has characterized the anticipated buildout as a new industrial revolution, comparable to the railway boom of the 19th century.
At an August 24, 2026 presidential roundtable, the conversation zeroed in on how AI companies could enhance grid capacity more broadly. Sacks framed the future trajectory of major AI firms as one where they evolve into influential power providers, not just power consumers.
During remarks at the G20 summit in September 2026, Sacks reiterated these points, asserting that properly managed data centers could stabilize or even reduce electricity costs while creating jobs and driving improvements in grid infrastructure.
The political tension underneath
The policy landscape features a genuine philosophical divide. On one side, there’s the expansion camp, represented by Sacks and allies who see massive infrastructure investment as both inevitable and beneficial. On the other, figures like Senator Bernie Sanders have advocated for restrictions on data center construction, arguing that the energy demands of AI shouldn’t take priority over other societal needs.
The Ratepayer Protection Pledge is, in a sense, Sacks’ answer to the restriction camp: don’t limit the buildout, just make sure the builders pay their own way.
The ultimate test will be simple: do residential electricity bills in communities near major data centers go down, stay flat, or go up? That’s the metric Sacks has effectively staked his credibility on.