The Vergecast · Friday, October 2, 2026
Kevin O'Leary's promotion of a massive data center project in Utah, called Stratos, has faced significant local opposition and controversy. O'Leary falsely accused opponents of being 'Chinese agents,' leading to defamation claims and apologies from Fox Business. An investigation by The Verge revealed that the project's approval process bypassed local authorities and that community backlash has led to the project being scaled back. The situation highlights the growing public resistance to large data center developments.
“We ran a big feature this week on the giant data center in Utah that was being promoted by Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful, Shark Tank fame. this as the largest data center in the world. It's 40,000 acres. It was called Stratos.”
“And Kevin O'Leary goes on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo, who's now since been fired, for leaking Fox's own news to the White House. Not great. But he goes on that and he goes, everybody opposed to this data center, this is obviously Chinese opposition.”
“The difference is with Foxconn, everyone knew the buildings were fake, but the people were excited because they were excited about manufacturing. In this case, there's no doubt that they would have built a data center, except everyone was furious.”