As Trump promotes data centers, he holds millions in data center stock

President Trump owned between $2.9 million and $9.5 million in investments in companies that CREW identified as owning, operating or providing infrastructure for data centers at the end of 2025, according to CREW’s review of his 2026 public financial disclosure. Those totals represent, at a minimum, a more than 600% increase in the value of Trump’s investments in the same category of companies at the end of 2024. 

Despite overwhelming public opposition, Trump and his administration have taken action to promote and aid data centers, potentially padding his bottom line. Trump has also repeatedly used his social media platform, Truth Social, to promote the industry online, including one recent post claiming, “AI, and Data Centers, will be the Greatest Economic Development Engine in History ­­— Bigger than Oil, Gold, Diamonds, or even the Internet.”

CREW identified eleven companies Trump is invested in, reported in his most recent financial disclosure, that are involved in developing, owning, operating or providing infrastructure for data center facilities. Our analysis excludes major hyperscalers such as Amazon, Oracle, Microsoft, Google and Meta, which make up a massive chunk of the US economy. Including Trump’s investments in hyperscalers would add tens of millions of dollars more to the total. The president has maintained that he does not direct the trading, and stocks are bought and sold by outside brokers.

Trump’s brokers dramatically ramped up his investments in the data center industry in his first year back in office. They made 292 stock trades on these eleven companies since he became president, as he has made consequential policy decisions and public statements about the industry. As of the end of 2024, Trump’s investments in these same companies were worth between $86,000 and $415,000.

According to survey data from earlier this year, seven in ten Americans oppose the construction of an AI data center in their area. The survey results found that respondents in support of construction cited potential economic benefits, while opponents focused on environmental concerns, quality of life impacts and possible costs. While data centers can create short-term job opportunities and have positive effects on local economies, they can also result in higher electricity costs, infrastructure costs falling on communities rather than corporations and outsized environmental impacts, including significant water usage.    

Trump has opened the door to more construction and less oversight as he invests in the industry. In July 2025, Trump issued an executive order declaring his administration’s prioritization of “the rapid and efficient buildout of [data center] infrastructure by easing Federal regulatory burdens,” and its intention to “utilize federally owned land and resources for the expeditious and orderly development of data centers.” 

One year later, amidst ongoing public resistance to data centers, Trump stated at an EPA event that tech companies had “formally committed to fund or build all energy infrastructure required to meet the demand they are placing on the grid,” though that pledge is voluntary and non-binding. Additionally, a new proposed rule from the EPA would allow new data centers to obscure from the public the potential pollution they could cause by exempting them from a Clean Air Act reporting requirement. 

Trump recently made a number of public statements doubling down on his support for the industry. At an event touting the July 2025 executive order, Trump remarked that communities “can’t fight” data center expansion and declared that communities that want data centers “are the smart communities.” He reiterated that sentiment in a post on Truth Social in August: “The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.”

Trump also has financial ties to the data center industry outside of his investments. Trump’s long-time business partner, Hussain Sajwani, is an Emirati billionaire and the chairman of Dubai-based luxury real estate firm DAMAC Properties. When a subsidiary named DAMAC Digital announced that it would spend $20 billion to develop data centers in the U.S., Trump suggested his administration would provide “expedited reviews” to the projects. DAMAC Properties paid President Trump $12.5 million during his first year back in office while DAMAC Digital sought to build data centers in the U.S.

With public sentiment and Trump’s position on data centers at odds, Americans must understand the conflict of interest posed by Trump’s investments in data center companies and his business ties to a data center developer. As Trump’s investments have increased, so has the risk that Trump will put his own bottom line first.

Walker Davis and Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel contributed to this piece.