Investor Kevin O’Leary Claims China Is Behind Opposition to His Utah Data Center
Investor Kevin O’Leary is turning a local Utah fight over water, power and land into a national security argument, claiming opposition to his massive proposed AI data center in Box Elder County is being fueled by interests linked to China.
The “Shark Tank” investor, who is backing the Stratos Project through O’Leary Digital, has accused some critics of spreading misinformation about the development and suggested foreign-connected money is helping slow U.S. data center and power infrastructure.
“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 a Fox News interview.
The project, also referred to as Wonder Valley, has been described as a 40,000-acre data center campus in rural Box Elder County. Reports have said it could require up to 9 gigawatts of power, more than double Utah’s current average electricity consumption.
O’Leary has said the facility would generate its own power, rather than draw from the existing local grid, and has promoted the project as critical for U.S. competitiveness in artificial intelligence. Residents and environmental advocates have raised concerns about water use and its effect on the Great Salt Lake region.
County commissioners approved the project earlier this month, but opponents have pushed for a referendum that could challenge the county agreement. O’Leary has rejected claims that the project would drain the Great Salt Lake or take Utah’s power supply.
In a post on X he wrote that residents deserve answers and that the project should go through legal and environmental review for air, water, noise, and temperature concerns. But he also said his team reviewed nonprofit filings and online activity and became convinced that “foreign-linked money, including interests connected to China,” was helping fuel efforts to slow U.S. data center and power development.
There’s been an enormous amount of misinformation surrounding our Utah data center project. Claims that we’re going to consume all of Utah’s electricity, drain the Great Salt Lake, or immediately build the world’s largest facility simply aren’t true. The reality is we’re building… pic.twitter.com/CIBi1rtw53
— Kevin O’Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) May 28, 2026
The allegations landed hard in Utah after O’Leary named local political strategists Gabi Finlayson and Jackie Morgan, co-founders of Elevate Strategies, during a Fox Business segment. The women denied any connection to China and said their opposition grew out of concerns shared by Utah residents.
“Obviously, we have no connection to the Chinese government,” Morgan told KUTV. Finlayson told Business Insider the accusation was “so crazy and so outlandish,” adding, “The only foreign operative here is a Canadian wealthy person trying to ruin our state.”
O’Leary Ventures later sought to soften the charge. CEO Paul Palandjian told Business Insider the company was not accusing specific individuals of being foreign agents, but wanted more transparency about the funding networks behind opposition to the project.
Data centers have become essential to the AI boom, but they are increasingly unpopular in communities worried about water, electricity, pollution, and tax incentives. The Washington Post reported that claims of China-backed data center opposition have been echoed by some Trump administration allies, but are based on limited public evidence.
