Everyone Hates Data Centers (Except Kevin O'Leary)
The short version: Pivot's Swisher and Galloway say what most host communities already know: data centers are unpopular, and the backlash is bipartisan and growing.
Our Take
Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway put a blunt label on something we've been tracking facility by facility: the data center backlash isn't a fringe environmental complaint anymore, it's mainstream and it crosses party lines. When even a cable-news investor class regular like Kevin O'Leary is the outlier defending the buildout, that tells you something about how far public opinion has moved while permits kept getting approved.
The reason is simple math that keeps landing on ordinary people: higher electricity bills as new demand gets added to strained grids, water drawn down for cooling in places that don't have much to spare, and huge tracts of land rezoned quietly, often with tax abatements nobody voted on directly. Pivot is talking about this at the national commentary level; we're interested in the local paper trail — which county commission signed the deal, which utility filed the rate case, which aquifer got the pull permit.
If this clip has you wondering whether there's one of these projects near you, check our map for what's been built, proposed, or approved in your area, and use our action resources if you want to know how to actually show up at the meeting where these decisions get made.
This is GridWatch the USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.