Amazon engineers went to Seattle City Council on Wednesday to support limits on AI data centers being built in the area, even as their own employer cuts tens of thousands of jobs.
According to CNBC, the engineers appeared at a City Council hearing to back a proposed moratorium on new large-scale AI data centers in Seattle. The council voted to approve the one-year pause to give the city time to develop regulations for the projects.
Patrick Schloesser, a software engineer at Amazon Web Services, spoke directly to the tension between capital spending and layoffs. "It's been reported that this year, Amazon is spending $200 billion on capital, with most of it going to data centers and AI," he said at the hearing. "Microsoft is spending $190 billion. Meanwhile, the leaders at my company have laid off 30,000 corporate employees in the last eight months. What that tells me is that Big Tech is desperate to build as much compute capacity as it can, as fast as it can."
The moratorium came after four developers approached Seattle City Light, the local utility, to pitch building five large-scale facilities in the city. Two of those developers later withdrew their proposals following public opposition, according to The Seattle Times.
An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC that the company does not currently plan to build data centers inside Seattle city limits. "Across the communities where we do operate data centers, we're committed to being a responsible neighbor — investing in local economic development while prioritizing water and energy efficiency that exceeds industry standards," the spokesperson said. Amazon also told CNBC it respects its colleagues' right to voice their opinions.
The 30,000 job cuts Schloesser referenced all came since October, part of an effort by CEO Andy Jassy to strip out management layers and reduce bureaucracy. Jassy has described his goal as making Amazon operate like what he calls the "world's largest startup." Amazon announced in February that it plans to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures this year, with most of that going to AI infrastructure, and reaffirmed that figure in April.
Seattle is not alone. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 14 states are currently considering legislation that would pause or ban new data centers. A report from Data Center Watch found that in 2025, at least $156 billion in data center projects were blocked or delayed because of local opposition and litigation.
The broader industry is not slowing down. Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta have together committed roughly $700 billion in capital expenditures this year, the majority of it aimed at AI infrastructure. At the same time, those companies and others across the tech sector have been pursuing cost cuts, including layoffs.
Schloesser, who has worked at Amazon for nearly six years, urged Seattle officials to require data center developers to commit to using renewable energy to power their facilities.
