Kevin O'Leary, the "Shark Tank" investor most recently famed for backing a massive data center in Box Elder County, Utah, apologized to MSNOW on Thursday for the project's poor public messaging.
In the wake of the project's unanimous May 4 approval, unofficial reports alleged that the data center — the Stratos Project — would effectively destroy the Hansel Valley, where it is proposed to be built. Dislike among Utahns grew significantly through the summer, and in the state's primary elections, the project was a political wrecking ball for Utah's Senate president and local county commissioners.
Of communicating plans for the data center and its environmental effects, O'Leary said last Thursday that he and his team "really screwed this up."
"If I've said anything that offends you, yes, I apologize. If I've done anything that you think has been unfair, I apologize," O'Leary told MSNOW. "But I also, with that, would say I want you to lend an open ear to what I'm going to show you in the months ahead."
After many decades of being considered politically and socially neutral, data centers have generated particularly bad press in the past year.
Those opposed have focused on the technology's potential environmental harms, including large water and electricity demands. Since water efficiency inside data centers has improved so much, water use now depends largely on how the power they require is produced. Some power production, like helium-cooled nuclear reactors, require no water at all.
Whether warranted or not, anti-data center sentiment has become mainstream in many circles. In one Facebook group with 181,000 members, the technology has been described as "most dangerous thing EVER built in this country."
If anti-data center messaging was a firehose, a pro-data center trickle has begun in the past several months.
In Ellendale, North Dakota, the $11 billion Polaris Forge 1 data center is helping residents in terms of taxes and electricity costs, according to data center proponents.
Ellendale's first seven months of 2026 brought in 775% more sales tax revenue than what the town collected in an entire year pre-data center.
The 2.5-million-square-foot facility, Ellendale Mayor Don Flaherty predicted, will raise the town's taxable property value from $3.5 million to $35 million. Meanwhile, in the winter when it takes less to cool down the data center's servers, electricity rates are expected to drop $250 per average household.
Josh Smith, a senior fellow at the Pacific Legal Foundation, referenced this story on Monday in an X post.
Later, speaking to the Deseret News, Smith said discussing the upsides of data center development is "like talking to a brick wall."
"People have overwhelmingly come into the conversation about data centers with answers, not questions," he said. "On Ellendale, the lesson for Utah should be that a marriage of prudent budgeting and data center investments can lower your electricity bill. Exaggerated fears of data centers will mean fewer jobs, higher taxes, and a poorer state."
Billy Binion, a reporter for Reason Magazine, commented on the same story on Sunday.
In an X post he wrote, "Everyone needs to hear this story. A data center came to a dying North Dakota town. The result? It can finally afford to repave streets, build a public-safety complex, create walking trails, and update the public school. How is that bad? The data center haters should explain."
In Utah, the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute reported on Monday that data centers can provide initial property tax relief for existing property owners.
They predicted, "Initial property tax relief will likely be accompanied by future tax shifts and volatility as Utah's Truth in Taxation policies take effect.
"Decision-makers will benefit from a careful fiscal analysis of each data center proposal," the report said.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a 2024 presidential candidate currently running for Ohio governor, wrote a 1,000-word X post last Thursday promising financial benefits for Ohioans living near data centers, if he's elected this November.
"The data center industry has badly failed to earn the trust of millions of everyday Ohioans who are struggling with electric bills and property taxes, wondering why large corporations receive property tax abatements while ordinary homeowners don't receive the same," he wrote.
He then gave three policy promises related to the economics of data centers. If a data center is built in an Ohio resident's community, Ramaswamy promised:
Data center-adjacent residents will not have to pay for their homes' electricity.
Property taxes will be lowered.
Data centers will follow all air and water quality standards.
"If any one of these three conditions is not met, the data center won't be built. Period," Ramaswamy wrote.
The vice president of general economics at Cato Institute, Scott Lincicome, published an article in The Dispatch last Thursday with the headline, "Data Centers Are Not the Problem. Bad Policy Is."
In it, Lincicome referenced moratoriums proposed by states across the nation and concerns vocalized by those opposed to the technology.
"Most of the common objections to data centers collapse under scrutiny," he wrote. "The buildings certainly aren't faultless and raise some real challenges, but they also generate substantial benefits that the backlash conveniently ignores."
He added, "To the extent data centers really do create problems, moreover, the source is mainly government policy, especially subsidies and energy bottlenecks. And that means better policy can mitigate the real problems surrounding America's data center buildout — no bans or dire economic consequences needed."
The day Lincicome's story was published, it garnered mixed reactions, which were more positive than not.
On the positive side, a policy adviser at the Abundance Institute, Shoshana Weissmann, quoted a section of the piece that referenced data centers' tendency to lower average retail electricity rates. She described the piece as an "extremely good explainer" and encouraged people to read it.
Meanwhile, another user quoted the article on X and wrote, "Then build them in your back yard."