At a recent artificial intelligence conference in Washington, DC, Google’s president cheered on Donald Trump’s interior secretary after he slammed Silicon Valley’s support of the so-called “climate extremist agenda” and pushed to expand the use of “incredibly clean” coal plants and other fossil fuels to power data centers, according to a previously unreported recording.

Following the speech by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Google and Alphabet, told conference attendees that “I thought Secretary Burgum’s comments were fantastic. . . .  Because I think it is very clear that to realize the potential of AI, you have to have the power to deliver it. And we have underinvested in this country, and to stay ahead, we need to actually address it head-on.”

Porat was speaking on a panel about how AI is “rewriting America’s future” alongside Big Tech leaders including venture capitalist Delian Asparouhov and Kevin Weil, the chief product officer for OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. During the panel, Porat also discussed a Google white paper advocating for US investments in natural gas and nuclear to power the industry’s energy-hungry data centers.