It’s not unusual for tech company CEOs to make the journey to Washington, DC, and announce billion-dollar investments to curry favor with politicians in power. Apple CEO Tim Cook was in the Oval Office last month, a piece of Apple-shaped glass and a 24-karat gold base in hand, to pledge another $100 billion in US investment over the next four years, for a total of $600 billion.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg perhaps had that number on his mind this week when he joined his fellow Silicon Valley heavy hitters at the White House for a dinner with President Trump. Zuckerberg was seated next to the president, who at one point leaned over and asked him, “How much are you spending, would you say, over the next few years?”
A flustered Zuckerberg responded, “Oh gosh, um, I mean, I think it’s probably going to be something like, at least $600 billion through ’28 in the US, yeah.”
“That’s a lot, that’s a lot,” Trump said.
It is indeed. Once the discussion concluded, Zuckerberg leaned over to Trump to privately admit the president had caught him off guard. “I’m sorry I wasn’t ready…I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with,” Zuckerberg said in a revealing moment caught on a hot mic.
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Meta would have to dramatically ramp up its AI spending to hit $600 billion in the next three years. During a July earnings call, Meta estimated its full-year 2025 total expenses to be between $114 billion and $118 billion. At the time, CFO Susan Li said Meta had not “kicked off our budgeting process for 2026.” But the biggest cost drivers for next year will be infrastructure costs and employee compensation, she said. Li estimated a growth rate of 20% to 24% year-over-year, so $600 billion by 2028 would be quite ambitious.
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Trump also quizzed the other CEOs on their AI investment plans. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company was already “well north of $100 billion” and would grow to $250 billion in the next two years. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the company is close to $80 billion per year in the US, a number that’s been consistent since at least January 2025.
OpenAI Sam Altman was also there, but his online sparring partner, Elon Musk, did not get an invite, The Hill reports. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was also not in attendance.
OpenAI Sam Altman and Apple CEO Tim Cook (Credit: Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Investment from all these companies will “build out data centers and infrastructure to power the next wave of innovation,” Zuckerberg said at the White House dinner. However, getting power to those data centers remains a challenge, given the enormous amount of energy they consume.
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Trump says he’s cutting red tape on electrical permits to make sure tech companies get what they need, while communities across the US are protesting the rapid growth of data centers near their homes, The Washington Post reports.
“We’re making it very easy for you in terms of electric capacity and getting it for you, getting your permits,” Trump said at the dinner, Bloomberg reports.
Electricity costs are skyrocketing along with data center growth. Monthly bills for the average household are set to increase 20% in 13 states in the Northeast, including Virginia, which has the highest concentration of data centers in the nation.
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About Emily Forlini
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