The Infinite Unknown

Overview

The Stratos Project — a proposed 40,000-acre AI data center and power campus in western Box Elder County, Utah — has become the highest-profile contested datacenter project in the United States as of mid-2026. Developer Kevin O’Leary (of Shark Tank fame), operating through O’Leary Digital, proposed a campus that would generate up to 9 gigawatts of power — more than double Utah’s current statewide electricity consumption. The project is sited in a remote, arid county (population ~60,000) over 4.3 million acres, and was fast-tracked through an unusual state governance body, the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), which triggered both community outrage and constitutional litigation.

As of June 2026, O’Leary has agreed to shrink the project by 75% to approximately 10,000 acres, and a constitutional lawsuit challenging MIDA’s authority over the project is pending in Utah’s 3rd District Court.

The Stratos Project

Developer: Kevin O’Leary / O’Leary Digital
Location: Western Box Elder County, Utah
Proposed scale (original): ~40,000 acres; up to 9 GW power generation; AI/cloud computing campus
Revised scale (June 2026): ~10,000 acres (75% reduction)
Governance body: Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA)
Status: Active development / under litigation

MIDA Governance Controversy

The Stratos Project was routed through MIDA, a special state authority originally created to support military installation development. MIDA is an unelected board with powers over land use, taxation, public health, and local governance within its jurisdiction. Two of its board members — Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams and state Sen. Jerry Stevenson — are sitting legislators, which plaintiffs allege violates the constitutional prohibition on holding more than one office of public trust simultaneously.

MIDA approval fast-tracked the project without the standard public input processes that govern county-level land-use decisions, effectively bypassing Box Elder County residents’ recourse to challenge approvals through normal channels.

Opposition Issues

Community and advocacy opposition centers on:

• Water consumption: Box Elder County is an arid high-desert environment; the Stratos Project’s cooling demands would draw heavily on local water resources. Over 2,300 protest filings challenged the project’s water permit application.
• Grid reliability: The project’s 9 GW power demand (double Utah’s statewide consumption) would require massive new generation and transmission infrastructure. O’Leary proposed on-site power generation; critics doubt the grid impact claims.
• Air quality and Great Salt Lake: Environmental groups cite the project’s potential impact on air quality and water flows critical to the already-stressed Great Salt Lake.
• Governance and democracy: The use of MIDA to bypass county democratic processes was the primary legal trigger for the constitutional lawsuit.

Litigation

Alliance for a Better Utah v. MIDA et al. — Filed June 4, 2026, Utah 3rd District Court

Plaintiffs: Alliance for a Better Utah (progressive nonprofit) and anonymous Box Elder County residents.
Attorney: David Irvine.
Claims:

1. MIDA is exercising powers the Utah Constitution never authorized for an unelected body — specifically, “permanent, irrevocable control over public health, safety, taxation, and land use across tens of thousands of acres of Box Elder County, with no voter recourse.”
2. Senate President J. Stuart Adams and Sen. Jerry Stevenson’s dual roles as legislators and MIDA board members violate the constitutional prohibition on holding two offices of public trust simultaneously.
3. Relief sought: void MIDA’s approval of the Stratos Project Area Plan as null and void.

The project was initially scaled back 75% under political pressure from Utah lawmakers, with legislators requesting the reduction before the lawsuit was filed. The resident-led application for a public referendum on the project was rejected on May 29, 2026.

O’Leary’s Foreign-Influence Claims

Starting in early May 2026, O’Leary publicly alleged that opposition to the Stratos Project — and to US data center development more broadly — is being organized and funded by foreign actors, specifically the Chinese Communist Party.

The Claims

In a video shared across social media accounts (late May 2026) and subsequent Fox News appearances, O’Leary stated:

• His team detected a sudden surge of “tens of thousands” of Instagram and X messages in early May, traced to overlapping IP addresses, bot activity, and “nefarious accounts from out of the country.”
• Data scientists he employed traced social media profiles back to Party for Socialism and Liberation and People’s Dispatch, which he described as “under investigation by multiple branches of Congress.”
• He traced connections to a network led by Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based US expatriate who funds far-left nonprofits alleged to have CCP ties.
• Regarding Utah specifically, he claimed funding for Alliance for a Better Utah moved through Arabella Advisors — a large US dark-money network — before tracing back to Chinese sources.
• He named co-founders of Elevate Strategies, a Utah political consulting firm, as “proxies for the Chinese government.”
• His conclusion: “It’s not just Utah. These guys are doing campaigns everywhere there’s a proposed increase in power and/or a data center.”

O’Leary stated he would release IRS Form 990 documentation to support his claims. As of publication, those documents had not been publicly released and Fox 13 independently noted it could not verify the claims.

Responses from Named Organizations

Elevate Strategies (Gabi Finlayson): “We are not Chinese foreign operatives. Never have been… We are absolutely not operatives for the Chinese government or any other government.” Finlayson, a Democratic political strategist since 2018, described the opposition as grounded in local concerns about the grid, water supply, and Great Salt Lake.

Alliance for a Better Utah (Elizabeth Hutchings): Denied receiving Chinese government funding; described the organization as funded by grassroots donors and Utah-based supporters.

Elevate Strategies (general): “The only foreign actor here is the Canadian billionaire pretending that he cares about Utah more than the people who live here.”

Credibility Assessment

O’Leary’s claims sit at the intersection of documented facts and unverified allegations:

What is documented: The Neville Roy Singham network and its CCP-alignment are the subject of a New York Times investigation (August 2023), four House committee inquiries, a Senate Judiciary Committee FARA demand, and a May 2026 Bitcoin Policy Institute research report (“Foreign Influence in the Campaign against American AI”). Singham has channeled ~$278M into six US nonprofits. CodePink, one Singham-network affiliate, ran explicit anti-data-center content in January 2026. The Arabella Advisors dark-money network has received ~$278M from Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, a foreign national. Congressional testimony at the February 10, 2026 Ways and Means hearing documented over $2 billion routed through foreign-tied charitable vehicles into US advocacy infrastructure.

What is unverified: The specific claim that Alliance for a Better Utah received funds traceable to Chinese sources via Arabella Advisors. O’Leary promised IRS 990 documentation but had not released it as of June 2026. Local news (Fox 13 Utah) said they could not independently verify the claim.

Context: Both things can be true simultaneously — a documented foreign-influence ecosystem targeting US AI infrastructure can exist and be a legitimate concern, while specific local opposition groups like Alliance for a Better Utah may have purely domestic, grassroots funding and genuine local grievances about water, grid, and governance. The Utah opposition predated and extends beyond any social media campaign.

Key Players

Timeline

Sources

• Utah residents sue officials over Kevin O’Leary data center plan - NBC News
• Kevin O’Leary says China is funding a ‘PR war’ against his Utah data center - Moneywise/Yahoo Finance
• Kevin O’Leary claims Utah organization is Chinese-funded - ABC4 Utah
• Kevin O’Leary promises proof after accusing Utah data center critics of China ties - Fox 13 Utah
• Utahn responds to Chinese ‘proxy’ label - KSL.com
• Kevin O’Leary: Utah AI data center opposition ‘ridiculous’ - The Hill
• Box Elder County data center shrinks by half - Salt Lake Tribune
• Kevin O’Leary Utah data center project still faces public review - Salt Lake Tribune
• Foreign Influence in the Campaign against American AI - Bitcoin Policy Institute
• In Utah, growing pushback over a city-sized data center - CS Monitor
• The AI Data Center Backlash Is Growing - 247 Wall St.