OpenAI Adopted the Democrats' Bill Before It Was Written

Senate Democrats want to make it mandatory for data centers to cover their own costs by law—not by suggestion, or hope or whim. — Chuck Schumer

That was Chuck Schumer in late September, when Senate Democrats killed a data-center bill the House had passed 417 to 3 because its requirement that AI companies cover grid-upgrade costs was optional. ^[1] He framed what Democrats were asking for.

While Americans are demanding real guardrails on AI and data centers, Republicans are offering a toothless messaging bill. We need real action on data centers. — Chuck Schumer

Five weeks later, the morning after an election handed those Democrats the House, OpenAI committed to pay the full cost of the electricity it draws and the grid upgrades it requires. ^[2] The nondisclosure agreements matched the same way. In August, Pennsylvania's governor banned NDAs attached to data centers; Massachusetts' governor did the same and conditioned permits on community agreements. ^[3]

Unless a community says yes to a data center, we’re saying no. — Maura Healey

In Washington, a House bill to limit the same agreements rested on a simpler argument.

Residents cannot weigh a project’s costs against its benefits, hold their officials accountable or safeguard their own resources when the basic terms are kept secret. — Jamie Raskin

The morning after the vote, OpenAI announced it would end NDAs with public officials, with narrow carve-outs for security and trade secrets. The same document pledged published construction plans and job data, and a promise to cut one Georgia campus's power draw by a thousand megawatts during grid stress, none of which any Democrat had put on the table. ^[2] The sequence ran from August to January without a gap. Governors in August, the Senate in September, and on November 4 the voters, who passed 40 of 41 local measures restricting or banning data centers while more than 130 Democrats won races on noise, water, and utility bills. ^[4] In January the new House plans corporate liability for AI harm, independent safety audits before release, shielding consumers from electricity costs tied to data-center growth, and hearings that compel executives to testify under oath. ^[5] Nothing on the public record says the compact was written against that calendar. OpenAI's finance chief says the election changed little for the company.

I don't think there was something that dramatically changed for us. — Sarah Friar

Set against the clause-by-clause correspondence, pre-emption is the natural reading of the sequence, nothing more. The pressure did not begin with the sweep: by mid-October, weeks before any votes were counted, investors had already marked Anthropic's expected valuation down, and New York City's comptroller was urging the company to pause its listing over safety risks. ^[6] The money settled the same way, and faster. OpenAI's new round closed at $15 billion on a $1.25 trillion valuation, half the size and $150 billion below the terms previously reported. ^[7] Anthropic is expected to list at $1.4 trillion, under the floor of the $1.5 to $2 trillion range it filed on the election's eve. ^[8][9] The buildout itself did not shrink. Anthropic's filing discloses $895.4 billion in purchase commitments and leases against $16.3 billion in first-half revenue, more than half due by 2030. ^[10] The scale was fixed long before the vote, which is why the settling happened in the other two currencies: policy and valuation, not the size of the buildout. What arrived the day after the vote was a suggestion delivered ahead of the law, the industry's wager that January's bills will resemble the November press release. The one ledger nobody offered to cut was the buildout.