President Donald Trump has long called solar panels a “blight” on the landscape and branded renewable energy “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY.” His administration has blocked hundreds of solar projects as it pushes fossil fuels first.
Yet a striking shift is underway. Prominent Trump allies, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, strategist Kellyanne Conway and GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio, are now publicly backing solar. Their reason has nothing to do with climate change. It is about power, speed and beating China.
Why the Right Is Changing Its Mind
According to The Washington Post, the United States is facing the largest surge in electricity demand in decades. Data centers, giant warehouses of computers that run AI tools and other software, are expanding faster than the grid can keep up. Tech companies warn their ability to grow is being strangled by a single bottleneck: not enough electricity.
Solar is one of the only ways to add new power generation quickly. Projects can be planned and connected to the grid far faster than new gas plants or nuclear reactors. That speed now matters to Republicans who see AI dominance as a national security priority.
Katie Miller, a right-wing podcaster and former aide to Elon Musk, made the case directly. “Look at what Australia did,” she said. “Solar solved their rolling blackout issues. President Trump has prioritized lowering the cost of energy for the American people โฆ I am simply advocating that solar can and should be a driver of the solution.”
Climate change barely enters the conversation. These conservatives frame solar as essential to U.S. competitiveness, grid reliability and their movement’s political survival, at a time when rising electricity bills are weighing on voters.
How Solar Is Already Reshaping the Grid
The numbers are hard to ignore. Together with battery storage, solar will account for 79 percent of all new capacity added to the U.S. power grid this year, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. Most of it is heading to Republican states. Texas alone will take 40 percent of the total.
Elon Musk is pushing to bring solar manufacturing back from China. Tesla plans to build U.S. factories capable of producing 100 gigawatts of solar cells annually, equivalent to 100 legacy nuclear reactors. In Virginia, conservatives are printing “Make Solar Great Again” hats. In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers want to let farmers install solar panels on unused land and sell the power to the grid.
Will the White House Act?
Signs of a shift are emerging. The Interior Department last week said it would allow several large solar projects it had blocked to resume permitting, saying they align with Trump’s energy goals.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who once called solar “just a parasite” on the power grid, softened his position. “Is there a commercial role for solar power that can add to the grid affordable, reliable energy?” he told reporters. “Certainly there is.”
Trump himself shared a video on Truth Social in which venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya argued that a Trump-backed tax break should fund solar panels on tens of millions of rooftops nationwide. The result, Palihapitiya said, would free up grid power for data centers while cutting household electricity bills to near zero.
Stephanie Bosh, a senior vice president at the Solar Energy Industries Association, called Trump’s promotion of the idea significant. “We would not have seen that last year,” she said.
Not every Republican is convinced. Fossil fuels advocate Alex Epstein dismissed the push, arguing solar cannot reliably power a modern grid. But his voice is increasingly drowned out, by members of his own side.
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