Data centers are wildly unpopular amongst the US population — so much so that grassroots opposition threatened some $130 billion in developments over the first three months of 2026 alone.
Tech executives, as a result, are having to make a calculated decision to change their tune, from AI doomsaying to something more palatable to the everyman. But just like their proselytizing over the coming AI apocalypse — messaging meant to win over investors and scare everybody else into ceding regulatory power — they don’t seem to realize that the entire world is watching as they execute their cynical pivot out loud.
Case-in-point, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian recently observed in a social media post flagged by Axios that “we gotta figure out a new narrative on this data center thing.”
The decidedly meek reflection is part and parcel of the tech industry’s increasingly obvious dilemma. Caught between dual political and financial pressures to win the public’s approval on data centers, tech billionaires are increasingly trying to address the public directly with new messages of hope, a positive vision for the shared future of humanity. As one can imagine, it doesn’t come easy to them.
