Data centers spent the midterms as a campaign punching bag over rising electric bills. One of the industry's biggest boosters is betting the backlash won't survive the first wave of paychecks.
“Shark Tank” investor Kevin O'Leary, whose O'Leary Digital is developing a massive AI data center campus in Utah, says states that fought these projects are about to reverse course.
“The politics around AI data centers are about to change fast,” O'Leary wrote in a post on X on Nov. 4, the day after Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress.
In the video he shared, O'Leary said the anti-data center message worked well on the campaign trail, but it won't last. “That's all going to get reversed,” he said.
Sponsored Content: The company behind the first FDA-cleared AI skin cancer device of its kind is now open to everyday investors. See How to Own a Stake.
Mr. Wonderful Sees Paychecks, Not Protest Signs
O'Leary called Texas “probably the shining example” of how the data center fight played out at the ballot box. Democrats flipped a Texas Senate seat in a seven-seat sweep, and James Talarico had promised in campaign ads to “take on the data centers raising our costs.”
O'Leary sees the same projects as a jobs engine.
“If you want to make hundreds of millions of Americans millionaires,” O'Leary said, pointing to the electricians, plumbers, and union workers who build data centers and power infrastructure in every state.
“The number one deployment of capital in America right now is power infrastructure and AI data centers,” he said.
The 3,000-Job Change of Heart
O'Leary then acted out how he expects state leaders to come around.
“Oh, that data center project in my state,” he said. “Let me think about that again for a moment. You tell me there's 3,000 jobs there, very high paying jobs for plumbers, electricians and architects and everything else, and builders and construction managers and everything else.”
“I want to rethink that. I think I like that idea,” he continued.
He also said developers would build their own power and sell it to states to bring down electricity costs, arguing “there's not a single data center being contemplated in America right now that doesn't have its own power associated with it.”
“So what was a pariah 24 hours ago is the path to wealth for the middle class by the millions of employees,” O'Leary said. “So I don't care what state you're in. You didn't like data centers last night. You love them this morning.”
The Electric Bill Still Gets a Vote
Voters may need more convincing. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll from June, 77% of Americans said they were worried AI would make electricity more expensive. Another 57% said they would oppose a data center in their own community. That included two-thirds of Democrats and half of Republicans.
The same reporting noted that data centers often don't create many long-term jobs once construction wraps.
O'Leary also has skin in the game. After a local backlash, his Stratos Project in Box Elder County, Utah, shrank from 40,000 acres to a 10,000-acre campus. “I need to employ 4,000 people to build it and 2,000 people to work there,” he told KSL in July. In the same report, KSL said Utah Senate President Stuart Adams and two county commissioners who backed the project had lost their reelection bids.
Politicians have been known to change their minds overnight, especially when there's a ribbon-cutting involved. O'Leary says the love affair starts this morning. Voters who just elected candidates promising to rein in data centers may take a little longer to come around.
On the date of publication, Caleb Naysmith did not directly have a position in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.