Kevin O’Leary sees an existential race. China races ahead in artificial intelligence. America must build. Fast. The “Shark Tank” star and billionaire investor has thrown his weight behind the Stratos Project. A proposed 40,000-acre hyperscale data center and power campus in remote Box Elder County, Utah. The venture could reach nine gigawatts of capacity. It might consume twice the electricity the entire state uses today.
Approval came quick. County commissioners voted 3-0 on May 4 after a chaotic public meeting. They cleared the room. Finished in closed session. Hundreds of angry residents never got their full say. Protests followed. Petitions. More than 2,300 formal challenges to the project’s water application. Developers withdrew it. They plan to refile.
O’Leary didn’t attend the hearing. He watched from afar. Then he struck back hard. On Fox Business and social media he labeled critics proxies for Beijing. He named names. Pointed to specific groups. Suggested their funding trails back to China through a web of nonprofits. The accusations landed like a grenade in quiet Utah communities.
“Who would want us to stop building our electrical grid? Who would want to stop us from having compute capacity to develop AI? Which adversary would want that? There’s only one: It’s China,” O’Leary said in one broadcast appearance. He doubled down. “These are proxies for the Chinese government, is my argument.”
The targets pushed back immediately. Gabi Finlayson and Jackie Morgan co-founded Elevate Strategies. They run Democratic campaigns and operate Elevate Utah, a platform that has criticized the project. When their phones lit up with messages after the Fox segment, they first felt rattled. Then they laughed. They shot a video. Mocked O’Leary’s flip-flops. Posted it online. “The only foreign operative here is a Canadian wealthy person trying to ruin our state,” Finlayson told Business Insider.
She added a sharper jab in the video. “We are not Chinese foreign operatives. Never have been.” The pair framed their work as homegrown. Concerned about water. Power rates. Quality of life in a place already squeezed by drought. Finlayson later quipped on social media that if they worked for Beijing they ranked among the worst operatives ever. “Someone alert Beijing that the payment portal to our Amex bills is somehow broken.”
Alliance for a Better Utah drew even sharper fire. O’Leary posted on X that a digital audit traced coordinated opposition back to the group. He cited IRS Form 990 filings. Claimed money flowed through the advocacy network Arabella Advisors before linking to Chinese sources. “Think about the incentive,” he wrote. “If China is racing to dominate AI and compute capacity, why wouldn’t they want to slow American infrastructure down?” On Saturday he promised proof. “This is irrefutable. This is Form 990 from the IRS, and I’m going to publish it today,” he told FOX13 News. As of this weekend the documents had not appeared publicly. The station said it had not received them.
Elizabeth Hutchings of Alliance for a Better Utah dismissed the charges outright. “No, I would probably get paid a lot more if I was,” she said when asked about Chinese funding. The organization describes itself as funded by grassroots Utah donors. It has advocated on the project for 15 years. In a statement the group called O’Leary’s claims insulting. “The only foreign interest in this data center is Kevin from Canada.” It challenged him to focus on transparency. Conduct a full environmental impact study. Take public comment seriously. “We’ll show our books if you do.”
Shoshone leader Darren Parry visited the Hansel Valley site. He saw burial grounds nearby. Too many questions remain unanswered, he said. The footprint dwarfs two cities. “People are awake now. They’re tired of business as usual. They want their values reflected. What makes Utah so beautiful is the environment that we live in; let’s not destroy it.” He rejected notions of paid protesters. Locals had simply had enough.
Environmental advocate Caroline Gleich gathered thousands of signatures. She highlighted the cost to residents filing protests. Nearly $60,000 spent at $15 per filing with no refunds when developers pull applications. “Utahns don’t want an out-of-state billionaire controlling our land.” The project threatens the Great Salt Lake. It could raise nighttime temperatures eight to 12 degrees. Increase evaporation. Disrupt wildlife corridors. Patrick Belmont, a Utah State University watershed sciences professor, offered a stark comparison. Building this facility would resemble “putting a hairdryer that has the energy consumption of New York City in the middle of a fragile desert ecosystem on the shores of one of the most imperiled lakes in the world.” Annual carbon emissions could hit 30 million tons. That exceeds Utah’s entire transportation sector by 50 percent.
O’Leary counters with jobs. He has spoken of 10,000 construction positions and 2,000 permanent roles, though Business Insider reported those figures face scrutiny. He points to advances in cooling technology. Closed-loop water systems. Air-cooled turbines. Less demand than older facilities. His team insists legitimate local questions on water, air quality, heat and taxes deserve answers backed by data. Submissions to state agencies will address them over years, said Paul Palandjian, CEO of O’Leary Ventures. “We accept that Elevate’s principals are American political strategists. We are not contesting that. What we have asked, and continue to ask, is for full donor transparency from the organizations that are funding the opposition to this project.” Concerns are legitimate, he added. But the broader stakes matter more.
Governor Spencer Cox backed the concept. At an April news conference he framed the choice clearly. “We have to do this. We can’t just say ‘no’ and shut the doors and go home and let China win this technology race.” The state, he suggested, holds an obligation to keep America competitive. O’Leary echoed the theme on “The Tucker Carlson Show.” China wants to hobble U.S. computing power. Every proposal meets resistance. He claimed most Box Elder ranchers actually support the project. The loud voices, in his view, do not represent the majority.
Yet the backlash runs deeper than one county. Nationwide, 71 percent of Americans say they would oppose a data center in their backyard, a Gallup poll found. Similar projects have collapsed under community pressure. Some states weigh outright bans. The Stratos plan relies on the Ruby natural gas pipeline. It could require 16.6 billion gallons of water yearly. Equivalent to 25,000 Olympic swimming pools. Critics question whether promised renewable mixes will materialize or whether natural gas will dominate. Robert Davies, a Utah State physics professor, calculated real consumption might approach 16 gigawatts once inefficiencies are factored in.
And. The fight reveals bigger tensions. America needs massive new power capacity for AI. Hyperscalers demand it now. Utilities strain. Water resources in the West already buckle under drought. Local governments chase tax revenue and jobs. Residents fear transformed landscapes, higher bills, and industrial footprints on ranchland. O’Leary positions himself as the realist. An environmental studies graduate who understands the trade-offs. His critics call him an outsider. A Canadian-born financier rushing a project that could reshape their state for decades.
Finlayson and Morgan turned the spotlight back on him. Their mocking video went viral among skeptics. They pre-sold hats. The message was simple. Utahns can speak for themselves. No foreign agents required. Alliance for a Better Utah promised to keep fighting. Transparency first. Real study of impacts. No more fast-track approvals that sideline public input.
O’Leary shows no sign of retreat. He vows to publish his evidence. Push the project forward. Frame every delay as a gift to Beijing. The referendum efforts brew in Box Elder. Legal challenges loom. State agencies will review water and air permits for years. What began as a local land-use dispute has become a proxy battle in the U.S.-China technology contest. One side sees national security at stake. The other sees a fragile desert and a lake already in peril. Both claim to speak for Utah’s future. The documents O’Leary promised may clarify funding questions. Or they may simply fuel another round of claims and counterclaims. Either way the Stratos Project has already changed the conversation. About power. About water. About who decides when progress comes at what cost.
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