O’Leary’s Data Center War Takes a Nasty Turn: This Defamation Suit Exposes the Real Power Play

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(SeaPRwire) –   By: Robert Kensington

Kevin O’Leary thought he could bully his way through Utah. He accused local activists of being Chinese Communist Party stooges. Now he sits across from a federal defamation suit. That is the cost of running your mouth without evidence. The Shark Tank star wanted to build a massive data center. He got opposition. Instead of engaging, he reached for the dirtiest weapon in the culture war. He branded two small political organizations as “cells” for the CCP. On Fox News, he repeated it. The lawsuit from Alliance for a Better Utah and Elevate Strategies is not a surprise. It was inevitable.

Let me walk through the facts O’Leary cannot escape. The suit was filed in Utah Federal District Court on Wednesday. The plaintiffs are Joshua Kanter and Gabrielle Finlayson. They claim O’Leary’s comments caused devastating reputational harm and economic losses. They also mention threats to physical safety. O’Leary’s lawyer, Jeff Neiman, called it a cash grab. But look at the timeline. O’Leary started his smear campaign in May. He appeared on at least ten media outlets. He said these groups were “taking the content from the CPP, repurposing it, and jamming it down the throats of people in Utah.” He did not produce evidence. He just threw accusations. Fox News gave him a platform. The network later claimed it corrected the record. But the damage was done. O’Leary only posted a clarification on Instagram on June 25. That was after he received a legal demand.

Now peel back the subtext. O’Leary’s Stratos Project is a nine-gigawatt AI computing complex. That is a massive piece of land in Box Elder County near the Great Salt Lake. Tens of thousands of acres. The local opposition had nothing to do with China. It was about water. It was about environmental impact. It was about residents who watched their county commissioners vote virtually after being shouted at. The real story is the backlash against AI data centers. Gallup found seven in ten Americans oppose having one built in their area. O’Leary tried to frame his fight as a geopolitical battle. It was always a local zoning fight. The two plaintiffs, Kanter and Finlayson, played almost no role in the organized opposition. Kanter made no public statements. Finlayson appeared in one video. O’Leary targeted them anyway. He needed a villain. He picked the wrong targets.

This lawsuit changes the calculus for every tech mogul trying to force through large infrastructure projects. You can no longer just shout “foreign interference” and expect the crowd to follow. The courts are watching. O’Leary’s own lawyer hinted that discovery will expose the real funding behind the opposition. That is a double-edged sword. If O’Leary cannot prove his claims, the punitive damages will be severe. The plaintiffs are asking for compensation and “punitive and exemplary damages.” The judge will decide. But the business lesson is clear. Data center land grabs are becoming radioactive. The politicians who backed O’Leary’s project lost their primaries. State senate president Stuart Adams lost after twenty years. Two county commissioners lost too. O’Leary reduced his project footprint from 40,000 acres to 20,000 acres. He is retreating. The lawsuit will make him retreat further. The AI boom needs physical infrastructure. But the communities are fighting back. And they will not be silenced by baseless accusations.
Author bio: Robert Kensington, an overseas entrepreneurial veteran with decades of experience in real-economy industrial investment and expansion.