Oracle trucks fuel at four times pipeline cost to its AI campuses while Trump posts a power mandate
The Truth Social "mandate" is political cover, not a rule, but it ratifies a system Oracle already runs: fuel-cell power on site, fuel by truck, and the bill on shareholders. Bloom sends some of the money back to Oracle in equity.
Richard Tang · 2 min read
President Trump posted on October 21 that large data centers are "mandated by me to make their own electricity," sell the surplus back to the grid and pay host towns a dividend 1. The mandate is not a rule: it restates the Ratepayer Protection Pledge Oracle−3.53% — Oracle, down 3.53 percent today and six other tech companies joined in March, which experts told the Associated Press is not federally enforceable 1. The plan it describes is real, though, and Oracle is already living it. The money trail says shareholders pay the bill while the supplier collects.
Oracle runs the model, and carries the fuel bill
Oracle self-supplies its AI campuses with Bloom Energy−10.41% — Bloom Energy, down 10.41 percent today fuel cells under an April 13 agreement for up to 2.8 gigawatts 1. At Project Jupiter in New Mexico, a 2.45-gigawatt microgrid, Oracle bears all energy costs and committed $360 million to local schools and infrastructure, the "dividend" Trump described, promised months before he asked 4. The company has proposed cutting the site's permitted emissions about 35% under New Mexico regulator review 3.
The pipe slipped, so the fuel arrives by truck
The catch is fuel and plumbing. The pipeline meant to feed Jupiter slipped to February 2027, so Oracle trucks compressed gas to some sites at roughly four times pipeline cost, and it invoked force majeure on the project in September 1. That converts a ratepayer's power bill into Oracle's cash burn: free cash flow was negative $28.7 billion over the past year and the stock is down about half in 12 months 1.
Oracle's capital spending has run more than twenty fold higher in three years
Data
| Capex | |
|---|---|
| Q4 '23 | 1.08 |
| Q1 '24 | 1.67 |
| Q2 '24 | 2.8 |
| Q3 '24 | 2.3 |
| Q4 '24 | 3.97 |
| Q1 '25 | 5.86 |
| Q2 '25 | 9.08 |
| Q3 '25 | 8.5 |
| Q4 '25 | 12.03 |
| Q1 '26 | 18.64 |
| Q2 '26 | 16.49 |
| Q3 '26 | 28.5 |
Bloom gets paid, partly in a loop
Bloom sits on the paid side of the trade, and the arrangement is circular in a way the filings show plainly. Bloom granted Oracle a warrant for 3.5 million shares, $324.4 million of consideration booked as a reduction of Bloom's own revenue, so the supplier partly pays its biggest customer in equity, and one unnamed customer was 73% of Bloom's Q2 revenue 2.
The next prints decide whether self-power is strategy or subsidy: Bloom's Q3 today, a hearing on Jupiter's air permit October 26, and New Mexico's decision deadline November 23 2. Watch the plumbing, not the post: the AI race now turns on who can get fuel to the front gate 1.
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