Microsoft goes quiet after church groups ask for 1% of data center costs
Ars Technica AI · rss · 2026-09-28
Microsoft has spent the year pitching itself as a "good neighbor" to data center communities, promising local property taxes and community investment — but according to Ars Technica, its liaisons go quiet when asked how much it is actually willing to spend.
The company has acknowledged that merely matching employee charitable donations ($229 million across 29,000 nonprofits in 2024) isn't enough, yet stays vague on bigger local investments. Critics note these look tiny next to the hundreds of millions in state tax breaks data center developers get across 38 states, exemptions often lasting over a decade. When church groups asked for 1% of data center costs, Microsoft went silent.
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