Hundreds demonstrated against a proposed Box Elder County data center in Tremonton on May 4.
Hundreds more gathered last week at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City to sound off against the proposed project.
The outpouring has prompted skepticism from Kevin O’Leary, the main force behind the controversial project, who has characterized the critics as non-Utahns and suggested they are linked to the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP. Over the long haul, the plans call for a data center intended primarily for military needs and a power-generating network to serve it, capable of generating 7.5-9 gigawatts of power at full buildout.
“So these are proxies for the Chinese government is my argument. They’re just spreading falsehoods. This is the CCP at work here. There’s no question about it,” he said in a post on the social platform X last week, one of his more charged pronouncements. A week earlier, O’Leary said, without providing evidence, that more than 90% of the critics don’t live in Utah and that some are paid “professional protestors.”
But when asked for more specifics and whether the Utah organizations most directly involved in campaigning against the data center plans are somehow beholden to China, Paul Palandjian, chief executive officer of O’Leary Digital, seemed to take a step back. Among the many progressive organizations that have publicly expressed opposition or are helping with a demonstration this coming Saturday against the data center plans are Salt Lake Indivisible, the Salt Lake Party for Socialism and Liberation, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and Sierra Club Utah.
“We are not asserting that any specific local organizer is acting on behalf of a foreign government, and we are not characterizing any individual on that list as a foreign agent. Many of these are legitimate civic groups with long operating histories in Utah,” Palandjian said.
Rather, Palandjian charges that the “Utah progressive advocacy network” organized against the data center plans is funded by the Arabella Advisors network, which he calls “a structure currently under active federal scrutiny.” Arabella was acquired late last year by Sunflower Services, which calls itself a public benefit corporation that aids “nonprofit and social impact organizations.”
He singled out Alliance for a Better Utah and the Better Utah Institute, among others, as recipients of “direct grants” from the Arabella/Sunflower network. He also called for “full donor transparency” in funding of groups opposed to the data center projects, but otherwise levied no specific accusations against the organizations.
A website created this month focuses on the funding of Alliance for a Better Utah, which has posted critical comments on data center plans, and says public records reveal “a layered network connecting Utah progressive advocacy to Arabella Advisors-managed dark money vehicles.” It also looks at the funding of Grow the Flow Utah, Friends of Great Salt Lake, Elevate Utah and the Center for Biological Diversity, other organizations that have made critical comments about the data center plans.
Palandjian pointed to the website, saying it contains “documented evidence that shines the light of transparency on the network of money behind the protests and opposition to the project.” However, aside from questioning the sources of funding of the varied organizations, it makes no specific accusations against them. The author or authors of the website aren’t identified, but Palandjian suggested that it is a secondary matter.
“The underlying records are the point. We encourage you and your readers to examine them directly rather than focus on the messenger,” he said.
‘A very unreliable narrator’
Reps from the groups singled out by the O’Leary camp reject charges and insinuations that they are linked to China or the Chinese Communist Party. They also rebuff allegations that the rabble-rousing against the project is coming from forces outside of Utah.
Deeda Seed, of the Center for Biological Diversity, called the rapid rise of the movement against the data center plans “one of the most astonishing, organic outpourings” in her 40 years of involvement in public policy issues. Those opposed come from a range of viewpoints, worried variously about the government’s role in aiding the development and its potential impacts on the environment and dwindling water supplies.
“All we have is this rhetoric from a very unreliable narrator who’s calling all of us Chinese Communist Party operatives, which is absolutely absurd,” she said.
Elizabeth Hutchings of Alliance for a Better Utah noted that the organization’s funding information is public, downplaying the ominous tone of those taking aim at the group. In an interview with Fox News, O’Leary cast a suspicious eye on the Alliance, suggesting it might be linked to the Chinese government.
“All of our information on donations and stuff like that is publicly available. He’s kind of treating this as a very deep investigative dive, and it’s really not,” she said. “We are not beholden to China, we don’t take directives from the Chinese government, we don’t work on behalf of the Chinese government. We’re working on behalf of the people of Utah.”
Charges aimed at critics of the project are “a distraction,” Hutchings said, adding that O’Leary might be better served by listening to what critics have to say.
“I think that he should spend less time into crafting stories and going after local people and organizations and baseless claims, and focus a little bit more on answering the public’s questions and earning trust within the community,” she said. “I think he’ll face less opposition if people feel that he’s acting in good faith.”
The data center project publicly emerged in late April when the board of the Utah Military Installation Development Authority, a state entity that promotes economic development tied to military initiatives, approved plans for the proposal. Box Elder County commissioners approved plans related to the initiative a week later.
The development would take years and span 40,000 acres set aside for the project, though it would occupy only a fraction of that land.