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Wright on Bloomberg: AI Energy Demand, Pennsylvania Gas, and Copper Tariffs

July 15, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:06:50

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Bloomberg’s Tyler Kendall interviewed Energy Secretary Chris Wright in Pittsburgh, where surging electricity demand to power artificial intelligence was the focus. Wright said President Trump’s agenda is to unleash American energy after four years in which, he said, the Biden administration shackled it, and that government’s job is to enable private businesses to build and invest rather than building itself.

Wright said the department speaks extensively with Meta about its data-center plans, calling AI the newest energy-intensive industry — taking electricity, the most sophisticated and expensive form of energy, and turning it into intelligence. He said hyperscalers including Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google will invest a few hundred billion dollars this year, with announcements at that day’s conference reaching, he said, $90 billion in Pennsylvania alone. He argued Pennsylvania, the second-largest energy-exporting state after Texas, can massively grow production but lacks pipeline capacity to move its natural gas out of state, so more gas will be consumed in-state to generate electricity and keep the United States ahead of China in the AI race.

On the 13 percent drop in the U.S. oil rig count since late February, Wright said the main incentive needed is for government to get out of the way, noting fossil fuels supplied 82 percent of American energy both before and after the Biden administration. On the 50 percent copper tariff taking effect August 1, he said its biggest impact will be speeding up U.S. copper mining, said he believes the President plans no special carve-out for the energy industry, and confirmed no carve-out negotiations were under way. On the President’s threatened 100 percent secondary tariffs on countries importing Russian energy, Wright conceded such a move would likely drive oil prices up but said the goal is pressure to end the war in Ukraine.

Why it matters

The interview ties the administration’s AI, energy, and tariff agendas into one argument: deregulated domestic production will power AI, tariffs will rebuild U.S. mining, and even price-raising energy pressure on Russia serves the goal of ending the Ukraine war.

Scoreboard watch

Wright said conference announcements that day reached $90 billion in Pennsylvania energy and AI investment; the figure is checkable against the Pennsylvania energy summit’s published announcement totals.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins Bloomberg’s Tyler Kendall – July 15, 2025”, 2025-07-15 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-07-15). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.