Facebook-parent Meta has been able to do something that Kevin O’Leary has failed to do: win over the local community around its Utah data center. Meta secured approval and support from residents in Eagle Mountain, while O’Leary’s Project Stratos in Box Elder County, which is just miles away from the Mark Zuckerberg-led social media giant’s data center has faced sustained backlash since its ‘quiet’ approval in May.Both projects sit on opposite ends of the Great Salt Lake, but the outcomes have diverged sharply. Meta’s Eagle Mountain facility, which opened in 2021, is now held up by locals and industry observers as an example of proper community engagement. O’Leary’s proposal, by contrast, has become a cautionary tale as developers race to build data centers to meet AI-driven energy demand.
Meta’s Eagle Mountain data center and early community outreach
Meta broke ground on its Eagle Mountain facility in 2018 and engaged city leaders well before construction began. Mayor Jared Gray told MS Now that the city reached agreements with Meta covering taxation and power usage ahead of time. “I think we did set some clear expectations in the beginning,” Gray said.Since opening, Meta has provided conservation grants to 20 organisations across Eagle Mountain, according to Gray. The company has also invested millions of dollars in local schools, funding a hydroponic garden at the high school and providing laptops for every student there.“Man,” Gray said, describing the town’s view of the company, “these guys really do what they say.”
Kevin O’Leary’s Project Stratos faces community backlash
O’Leary’s proposal has been shaped by limited outreach and shifting plans. He originally sought to acquire 40,000 acres, an area twice the size of Manhattan, before reducing the footprint by half following community pushback. The project is still expected to draw up to 9 gigawatts of power.Dr Robert Davies, associate professor of physics at Utah State University and a leading critic of the project, compared its power consumption to that of two states of Utah or three New York Cities. He said the resulting heat output could raise temperatures in the valley and speed up evaporation near the Great Salt Lake, which has already lost three-quarters of its volume over several decades.O’Leary acknowledged the communication failures directly. “We really scr*wed this up,” he told MS Now. “We have not communicated what we do.”
Political fallout in Box Elder County
The approval of Project Stratos carried political consequences almost immediately. Republican voters ousted several local officials who had supported the project in primaries the month after its approval, including the state Senate president.Mare Burningham, who received a Meta grant to study deer migration patterns in Eagle Mountain, described the region’s resistance to outside development. “We here in the West have a history of overcoming hardships and challenges,” she said, adding, “I think [O’Leary] just set himself up for a really big fight [in Box Elder County].”
What comes next for the Utah data center
O’Leary has since adopted a more conciliatory tone, despite ongoing litigation tied to the project. He told MS Now he still plans to submit permit applications, which would provide the information residents have been requesting.Three months after the project’s initial approval, O’Leary’s company has not released those plans or disclosed which entity will use the data capacity once built. “I got a lot of work ahead of me,” he said. “If I’ve said anything that offends you, yes, I apologize. If I’ve done anything that you think has been unfair, I apologize. But I also, with that, would say I want you to lend an open ear to what I’m going to show you in the months ahead.”Meta operates 28 data centers across the US and has faced criticism elsewhere, from concerns over water quality in Georgia to questions about real estate deals in Louisiana. But in Eagle Mountain, the company is seen more as a cooperative presence, a contrast often drawn to the ongoing standoff in Box Elder County.
