It cost the US government $20 billion for air conditioning alone during the Iraq war. A data center is a rounding error.

On demand compute is nice for startups, but overly expensive for mature organizations.

Just because they spent $20 billion on this, and $20 billion on that, doesn't mean that they also have another $20 billion they can spend on something else as well. There's no logic in that argument.

Large organizations have the cash flows and reserves to realize efficiencies smaller organizations cannot.

You cannot afford to own a refinery. Delta Airlines can and does, as a hedge against fuel costs (which turned out to be a very profitable decision for them). That is the point.