President Trump is pushing states to roll out the red carpet for Silicon Valley's artificial intelligence empire.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis isn't buying what the tech billionaires are selling.
And Ron DeSantis just defied Trump to block Silicon Valley's Florida takeover.
Trump wants AI factories built at warp speed
President Trump signed an executive order demanding states streamline approvals for massive AI data centers.
Trump declared there must be "only One Rulebook" for AI development and threatened to overrule state regulations he views as obstacles to American technological dominance.¹
"We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won't last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS," Trump wrote on social media.¹
https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1998021113948106991?s=20
Silicon Valley titans like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are in Trump's ear pushing this agenda hard.
They want to build giant AI factories across America without dealing with pesky local concerns about electricity costs, water usage, or community impact.
Tech companies are planning to pour $364 billion into AI infrastructure this year alone.²
And they expect states to hand them the keys to build wherever they want.
DeSantis tells Trump and big tech to pound sand
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis fired back within hours of Trump's announcement.
"An executive order doesn't/can't preempt state legislative action," DeSantis posted on X.³
He pointed out that Trump tried this same maneuver twice before through Congress and failed both times because Republicans revolted.
"Congress hasn't proposed any coherent regulatory scheme but instead just wanted to block states from doing anything for 10 years, which would be an AI amnesty," DeSantis wrote.³
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/1998101450442895531?s=20
DeSantis announced his own "Citizen Bill of Rights for Artificial Intelligence" to protect Floridians from Silicon Valley's invasion.⁴
The proposal blocks AI data centers from passing their massive infrastructure costs onto Florida taxpayers through higher utility bills.
It gives local governments the power to reject data center construction in their communities outright.
And it prevents foreign-owned AI companies from building facilities on Florida agricultural land.⁴
"We cannot turn it all over to machines and think it's going to work out great in the end," DeSantis said at a press conference.⁵
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2000696952623665456?s=20
These AI factories are electricity-guzzling water hogs
What Trump and his Silicon Valley advisors aren't telling Americans is what these data centers actually cost communities.
A single data center requires 300 megawatts of electricity running 24 hours a day.⁶
That's enough power to run the entire city of Tallahassee around the clock.⁶
The facilities need constant cooling, which means they devour water like nothing Americans have seen before.
A medium-sized data center burns through 110 million gallons of water per year.⁷
Large facilities use up to 1.8 billion gallons annually.⁷
Guess who pays for upgrading the electrical grid and water infrastructure to support these monsters?
Florida ratepayers and taxpayers, that's who.
Residents in Loudoun County, Virginia got a preview when their county became a data center hub.
https://twitter.com/NowTheEndBegins/status/2005640989759947073?s=20
Sure, the county gets property tax revenue, but homeowners watched their utility bills climb as the power grid struggled to keep up with demand.⁶
Small towns across America are already fighting back against what locals call "noxious smog" from AI facilities linked to health concerns and soaring electricity costs.⁸
DeSantis caught Trump listening to the wrong people again
This isn't the first time DeSantis has had to step in when Trump gets bad advice from establishment types.
During COVID, Trump surrounded himself with Dr. Anthony Fauci and other bureaucrats pushing lockdowns and mandates.
DeSantis ignored their guidance, kept Florida open, and proved the experts were dead wrong.
Now Trump is taking marching orders from tech billionaires who see dollar signs where Floridians see their electric bills doubling.
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg don't care if your utility costs go through the roof to power their AI experiments.
They're not the ones who have to explain to constituents why their water bills jumped 40% because some data center needed to cool its servers.
DeSantis has been fighting big tech since 2021 when he signed Florida's first law cracking down on Silicon Valley censorship.⁹
He passed the toughest data privacy protections in any Republican state to stop companies from selling Floridians' personal information.¹⁰
The governor blocked Disney when the woke corporation tried to run Florida's government.
And now he's standing up to Trump's Silicon Valley advisors who want to turn Florida into their personal AI playground.
"Big Tech has come to look more like Big Brother with each passing day," DeSantis said when announcing his AI regulations.⁴
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2005306477268099341?s=20
Trump's executive order might not even be legal
DeSantis isn't just opposing Trump on policy grounds.
The Florida governor argues Trump's executive order is constitutionally suspect.
"First of all, an executive order can't block states," DeSantis explained at a recent event.¹¹
"You can preempt states under Article 1 powers through congressional legislation on certain issues, but you can't do it through executive order."¹¹
Even if the Justice Department tries to sue Florida under some creative legal theory, DeSantis is confident the state would win.
"I'm confident that we'd be able to win that because, clearly, we'd be legislating within the confines of our 10th Amendment rights as states," DeSantis said.¹²
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2000599009447256209?s=20
States have the constitutional authority to protect their residents' health, safety, and welfare.
That includes stopping data centers from bankrupting ratepayers and draining water resources.
Florida Senate President Ben Albritton backed DeSantis, noting that while Trump is thinking about global AI competition, states have to protect their own residents.¹³
Republican governors in Arkansas, Missouri, and Utah also pushed back when Congress tried to ban state AI regulations earlier this year.¹⁴
This isn't a left versus right issue.
It's about whether Washington elites and Silicon Valley billionaires get to impose their vision on communities that have to live with the consequences.
DeSantis is betting Floridians care more about their utility bills and property rights than they do about making Elon Musk richer.
The Florida legislature will take up DeSantis' AI Bill of Rights in the 2026 session.
If it passes, Florida will become the first major state to tell big tech and their allies in Washington that local communities get the final say on whether AI factories invade their neighborhoods.
¹ Emily Forlini, "DeSantis Breaks With Trump on AI: 'Fake Videos' Are Not 'Some Kind of Utopia,'" PCMag, December 29, 2025.
² Liv Caputo, "'AI Week' crashed by Trump-DeSantis battle over regulation: What's next?," Florida Phoenix, December 9, 2025.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Executive Office of the Governor, "Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Proposal for Citizen Bill of Rights for Artificial Intelligence," December 4, 2025.
⁵ Liv Caputo, "'Age of darkness and deceit': DeSantis proposes 'AI bill of rights' in crack down," Florida Phoenix, December 4, 2025.
⁶ Brendan Farrington, "Power struggle: Gov. DeSantis pushes back on effort to build AI data centers in Florida," Associated Press, December 30, 2025.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ AI Daily, "DeSantis Leads AI Opposition Amid 2025 Backlash," December 27, 2025.
⁹ Executive Office of the Governor, "Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Bill to Stop the Censorship of Floridians by Big Tech," May 24, 2021.
¹⁰ Jonathan Greig, "With 'big tech' in DeSantis' crosshairs, Florida becomes 10th state with data privacy law," The Record, June 6, 2023.
¹¹ Brooke Migdon, "Ron DeSantis defends Florida's AI regulation rights," The Hill, December 16, 2025.
¹² Liv Caputo, "DeSantis confident Florida won't run afoul of Trump's AI order," Florida Phoenix, December 15, 2025.
¹³ WFSU News, "Trump AI executive order announcement clashes with DeSantis' proposed AI Bill of Rights," December 8, 2025.
¹⁴ Forlini, December 29, 2025.
