Kathy Hochul signed the executive order on Tuesday. Donald Trump wanted him to postpone it on Wednesday.
The order temporarily halts the construction of new data centers drawing 50 megawatts or more for a year, making New York the first US state to put the brakes on the buildings that are powering the AI boom.
Government officials should conduct a General Environmental Impact Statement in the meantime, as well as a freeze once those levels are established.
Trump took to Truth Social to call it a “bad decision” that would provide investment, tax revenue, and jobs to states that want it. “One of the biggest driving forces in the future of Jobs, is data centers,” he wrote, describing them as “Money Machines” for the states that run them.
Projects will now go to Texas, Florida, Alabama and Arizona, he argued, where “Both Taxes and Duties equal LIQUID GOLD!” He told New York to reverse course “IMMEDIATELY”, warning the US not to risk losing AI leadership “to China and other countries”.
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Kathy Hochul responded with X the same day, and removed her phrase from him. “If data centers really are ‘LIQUID GOLD’, New Yorkers deserve more than what’s been thrown away,” he wrote.
“We stand still because the communities that enable AI must share in its success,” he added. “Maybe that’s a new concept in Washington. We call it doing our job.”
His issue with this order depends on municipal debts, water, and the fact that the costs of these institutions come to the cities they host while most of them do not.
A Georgia Tech study released last week found that data center benefits are unevenly distributed, with metropolitan areas taking the lion’s share of the benefits while rural communities host facilities and incur higher electricity bills.
Financial statistics describe capacity. US data center lease commitments exceeded $850bn in the first quarter of 2026, a record. Against this, the one-year break in one case is small, and the reaction has been uneven.
Bill Ackman made it to the same China interview that the president did. “China is not putting measures in place to stop data centers,” he wrote.
“The mass espionage race needs to be won by the USA or our country and democracy will be at risk.” Anthony Pompliano called this goal “about as dumb public policy as you can come up with”.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went the other way, thanking Hochul and arguing for a moratorium to buy lawmakers time to draft strong defenses and affirm AI. “It benefits us all, not just the powerful few”.
What is surprising is how little is exchanged about New York. Trump’s position is a threat to some governors as a complaint in this regard, and it comes alongside a broader campaign of the coalition to override the AI law of the country, using the DOJ’s team of cases and enforcement of the national level.
That campaign did not go well. The Senate voted 99 to 1 to strip the exemption provision.
There is also the odd wrinkle. The administration’s executive order on preparation recorded the data center’s design authority as a federal matter, which came close to explaining what Hochul had just done.
And he is not an outsider raised by the frame. Local opposition delayed or blocked at least 75 data center projects worth nearly $130bn in the first quarter alone, none of which required a governor. Denmark has temporarily suspended the grid connection.
New York is the first state to write opposition into an executive order, not the first to resist it.
Order has stopped. Trump has no way of raising it, Hochul has shown no signs of wanting to, and the Generic Environmental Impact Statement will take as long as it takes.
