Big Tech’s PR Playbook for Overcoming Data Center Opponents | TechPolicy.PressAnalysis<br>Big Tech’s PR Playbook for Overcoming Data Center Opponents<br>Dean Jackson, Sam Totoni / Aug 4, 2026Earth movers prepare a site for a 2.5 million square foot AI data center Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Independence, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
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Opposition to data centers is growing across the United States, and, like the fossil fuel industry before it, the tech industry is pulling from tried-and-tested playbooks to bypass and securitize public opposition. The results of these efforts reveal both the patchy infrastructure for transparency and accountability in the US, as well as the speed and determination with which industry is moving to build these facilities with hundreds of billions of dollars in capital investment.<br>Previous efforts by other industries to manipulate public opinion have ranged from AI-driven influence operations in the utility sector to fake recycling coalitions designed to deflect oil industry accountability for the harmful effects of plastics. Such operations are often hidden behind polished, consumer-facing branding and effectively insulate corporate bottom lines from regulatory scrutiny and public accountability.<br>Up against a similar PR playbook, some residents in affected communities reported feeling like insurgents against both Big Tech and local elected officials. At least some representatives of the tech industry agree: in September 2025, Kevin Nichols, an employee of the advocacy group Earth Charter Indiana, attended the Midwest Data Center Investment Conference and Expo (DICE) in Chicago, where he says he observed one speaker comparing his experience promoting data centers to counter-insurgency tactics the speaker used during military service in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as “going undercover in bars and churches to gauge a community’s potential for resistance to a data center development.”<br>The language of intelligence gathering is apparent in a job posting from Data Center Watch, a group that tallies the number of deals “blocked or delayed” by local opposition, which tells applicants they will “conduct open-source and targeted research in various sources, including social media” as part of an effort to track “political risks emerging from local opposition to data centers.” (A representative from Data Center Watch says that it “does not maintain separate HR or recruiting functions” from 10a Labs, a company that describes itself as collecting “intelligence” for “AI unicorns, Fortune 10 companies, and US tech leaders.”)<br>Big Tech’s big money buys influence<br>Against this backdrop, Big Tech is spending big money to influence the public conversation. As the 2026 US midterm elections approach, super PACs focused on AI have already spent more than $50 million on Congressional races. According to Transformer News, by far the largest tranche of this money flows through a group called Leading the Future; its biggest donors are the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, his partner Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI President Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna.<br>Leading the Future—alongside Build American AI, an associated PAC—is doing more than making campaign donations. In May, Taylor Lorenz reported for Wired that Build American AI had conscripted social media influencers into a pro-data-center campaign that leaned heavily on arguments about an AI race with China. A month later, Lorenz released a joint investigation with Tyler Johnston of Model Republic alleging that Build American AI runs multiple fake “sockpuppet” accounts on X. Also in May, Johnston reported that another Leading the Future affiliated PAC, Think Big, seems to receive a large amount of its social media engagement from what appear to be fake accounts posing as OnlyFans performers.<br>An earlier report by Johnston concluded that Leading the Future might be connected to what appears to be an AI-generated news site called Acutus; the site repeats talking points often used by Leading the Future and frequently publishes harsh criticism of AI safety advocates. In March, Transformer reported that Build American AI had spent more than half a million dollars on ads to harvest the contact information of between 500,000 and 1,000,000 supporters on social media—a common astroturf tactic that allows groups to boast about the size of their support base even when that support may be quite shallow.<br>Data center front groups abound<br>One noticeable trend has been the data center industry’s adoption of a longstanding marketing tactic: the creation and use of nonprofit front groups. Many of these groups are registered nonprofits who keep their funding, staff, and industry relationships deliberately opaque; while they can sometimes be identified through tax filings like IRS Form 990, their websites often fail to disclose even basic information about their leadership or sources of support.<br>“Companies' use of third parties like corporate front groups and...