A Private Data Center Got Labeled a Military Project. That's How It Beat a Public Vote — and a Dying Lake's Water Law.

Kevin O'Leary is building a $100 billion, 40,000-acre AI data center in rural Utah. When residents tried to stop it, they ran into moving targets at every turn: a state agency built for military bases approved the project as an "administrative action" — a classification that meant it couldn't go to a public vote, a commissioner who voted yes sat on an undisclosed lien against the developer's own land, the board chair's PAC took its five largest donations ever from MIDA-connected money days after the approval, and while a water rights fight over the project was playing out, the legislature narrowed the water law that fight depended on. Utah's own governor now says the approval process was "not good" and needs "major reform." Two commissioners and the state Senate president lost their own primaries over this project — and the fights over it are still open, in court and in the water rights office, with a watchdog group now asking the Attorney General to investigate.