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Here's where it gets complicated on China.
Big Tech says: build data centers in America, not China. But I've worked inside China directly. I have never, not once, witnessed a Big Tech company put real protections on their IP in Chinese partnerships. ASD-adjacent minds tend to extend trust where cultures signal openness. China does this masterfully. So when anti-data-center people question whether "built in America" actually protects anything... they're not wrong. The rhetoric exceeds the practice.
Now to Box Elder specifically.
The Stratos Hyperscale project — 7.5 gigawatts, 40,000 acres, approved by Box Elder County Commission this month — is developed by O'Leary Digital. Kevin O'Leary, who along with Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen has "come out" as a staunch conservative. I respect that. It takes something to do that publicly. But I'm going to hold them accountable the same way I'd hold anyone else.
O'Leary and others point to Arabella Advisors money funding data center opposition. That's true and I'll get into it. But they need to be honest that the vast majority of opposition in communities like Box Elder is organic conservative opposition... people worried about the Great Salt Lake, about water, about being near Utah's largest earthquake epicenter. Dismissing them by pointing to dark money is a way of avoiding the harder conversation.
Here's what I actually want from people with the power to put 7.5 gigawatts in the Utah desert:
If you have the capital and political leverage to pull this off, you have the capital and leverage to finance power plants. You have the leverage to fund serious water reclamation infrastructure. And you have the leverage to institutionally push back on the NGO network that is genuinely coordinating against you; groups like Mormon Women for Ethical Government, which I've written on at length, and which does not represent organic conservative sentiment despite the branding.
Go all the way or don't make the argument.
And one more thing: if a company wants to be a customer of these data centers, they need to commit to real, auditable IP protections regarding China. If O'Leary wants to make the "America first" argument for data centers, make it mean something.
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Conversation
Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful @kevinolearytv
Why is there suddenly such an aggressive push against American data centers and AI infrastructure? After seeing a major spike in coordinated opposition campaigns around our Utah projects, we conducted a digital audit and traced a large amount of the activity back to an organization called Alliance for a Better Utah, which has been pushing misinformation throughout Box Elder County about our data center developments. What’s even more concerning is where the funding appears to originate. After reviewing IRS Form 990 filings and tracing the network behind it, the money appears tied to Chinese linked funding channels connected through an organization called Arabella. Think about the incentive, if China is racing to dominate AI and compute capacity, why wouldn’t they want to slow American infrastructure down?
https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/2055766835933712881

DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican - My bad on this. Great idea.