Fox personalities are promoting a false narrative that Democrats and left-leaning organizations are primarily responsible for nationwide opposition to fast-tracking construction of large and energy-intensive data centers. Both Fox News and Fox Business have pushed claims that protests against data center projects are being led by “far-left activists” and politicians who are working to “make sure we lose the AI race” with China — with some on the networks also accusing data center opponents of having ties to China or Chinese-linked funding networks themselves. 

In reality, experts are skeptical of “claims that Beijing is directly and intentionally involved in the US data center discourse,” according to WIRED, and Fox was forced to apologize after repeatedly boosting claims that opposition to a proposed data center in Utah was being funded by China. Meanwhile, polling increasingly suggests that both Democrats and Republicans are concerned about the negative impacts of data centers — a recent survey from Heatmap Pro found that “at least seven in 10 Americans would now oppose a data center being built near their home,” including 78% of those who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and 63% of those who voted for President Donald Trump. 

Meanwhile, right-wing media are divided over the impacts of the technology and the infrastructure that supports it. As Fox has leaned into supporting the Trump administration's AI ambitions, the technology is seeing significant pushback, with many calls for regulation coming from other right-wing media figures and Republican politicians ahead of the midterm elections. 

• While discussing recent wins by democratic socialists in New York City, Fox host Johnny “Joey” Jones warned that “young Democrats” could move left, citing a Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate who he said is “using this idea of data centers to try and pull away some of the disenfranchised Trump voters.” Jones said, “There is someone running for governor of, I believe it's Wisconsin right now, who’s — and so she's using this idea of data centers to try to pull away some of the disenfranchised Trump voters. So there is an appeal there among people who feel like either the capitalist system or the current government has left them behind.” [Fox News, The Five, 7/6/26; USA Today, 6/26/26]
   
• Fox Business host Stuart Varney said the left wants to “stop the expansion of data centers” and “call a halt to AI development” in “an attack on American success.” Complaining about “outrage” at Apple from both consumers and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for raising the prices of its products, Varney said, “The left wants to tax, regulate, and control it all. Stop the expansion of data centers, call a halt to AI development, have the government buy controlling stakes in AI companies. Anything to turn back this new and dynamic force in our society. It's really an attack on American success.” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 6/29/26]
   
• Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo attributed data center “pushback” to “Democrats who say they don't want these data centers being built out because it's affecting neighborhoods.” Bartiromo said that while data centers are causing energy demand to surge, “residential and commercial demand” are also “fueling the surge and yet you’ve got lots of pushback by Democrats who say they don't want these data centers being built out because it's affecting neighborhoods.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 6/24/26]
   
• Fox Business' Lauren Simonetti accused the left of “taking their socialist policies to the next revolution, which is here, artificial intelligence” and “trying to stop it.” Fox News contributor Liz Peek additionally attacked the state of New York because the state legislature passed a bill in June “saying a year moratorium on data centers. How stupid is that?” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 6/15/26]
   
• On Fox Report with Jon Scott, American Energy Institute founder Jason Isaac blamed “foreign billionaires” for data center protests, arguing that most opposition is part of an “emotional manipulation marketing campaign” that is “being funded by left-leaning people and leftist organizations around the world.” He concluded that “the vast majority of people in that particular poll, the over 70% opposing data centers, I think most of them it’s because of the manipulation from foreign funding.” [Fox News, Fox Report with Jon Scott, 5/31/26] 
   
• Fox Business contributor Lou Basenese attacked Ocasio-Cortez alongside Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for their stances on AI, which he said would cause the U.S. to “shoot ourselves in the foot and make sure we lose the AI race.” Basenese said, “I had a interview with Gov. Rick Perry one time and he said look, if you want more of something, you incentivize it by cutting taxes. If you want less of something, you tax it more. It’s absolutely going to impact the demand for AI, the growth of that trend. This is very nearsighted. … This is akin to AOC and Bernie Sanders saying let’s put a moratorium on all data centers. Yeah, why don’t we just shoot ourselves in the foot and make sure we lose this AI race.” He added that putting a moratorium on data centers is “the dumbest idea I’ve heard.” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 5/28/26]
   
• Varney & Co. framed opposition to AI and data centers as a threat to U.S. technological dominance. Varney warned that mounting opposition could “throttle” a technology in which America has “a strong lead,” criticized Sanders’ call for a data center moratorium, and argued that the U.S. “better win” the AI race. [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 5/19/26]
   
• Bartiromo attacked Sanders for suggesting a moratorium on building new data centers due to electricity rate hikes and other issues, asking, “How does that lead to the U.S. being the No. 1 player in AI across the world, beating China?” In response, Energy Secretary Chris Wright accused Sanders of “selling fear” on rate hikes. “It's the states like New England and California that have reduced their production of electricity, they have the skyrocketing prices,” Wright said. [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 2/25/26]

• Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, told Fox’s David Asman that data center opposition is “not entirely organic” and is being influenced or “funded by China.” Asked for evidence “that the Chinese are actually encouraging the anti-AI data center protests,” Chang asserted that, while “locals do have a lot of concerns,” the protests “are not entirely organic.” Rather, Chang called the protests “part of a larger effort ... opposing AI development in general,” and said, “The protests themselves are being funded by China,” specifically citing feminist anti-war organization Code Pink as one alleged funding pathway. Chang also attacked Bernie Sanders for hosting a panel that included two Chinese scientists to discuss international cooperation on AI safety and for attempting to temporarily halt data center construction. In March, Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced legislation that would institute an “immediate federal moratorium on AI data centers until strong national safeguards are in place.” Chang accused Democratic lawmakers of ensuring the U.S. would “never” resume data center construction. [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 6/5/26; U.S. Senate, Office of Sen. Bernie Sanders, 3/25/26; The Guardian, 4/29/26] 
   
• Reporting on opposition to a proposed hyperscale data center in Utah backed by Shark Tank personality Kevin O’Leary, Maria Bartiromo said, “China’s monetary influence here in the United States could be funding a swell of opposition to American data centers.” Fox correspondent Darren Botelho said, “As usual, follow the money, and that’s exactly what we’re doing this morning,” before reporting that Code Pink had criticized the O’Leary-backed data center project over environmental concerns. Botelho also reported that O’Leary had accused local groups of having ties to China-linked funding networks, but noted “there’s been no independent verification of that claim.” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, 5/27/26]
   
• Fox News anchor Dana Perino: “Far-left activists targeting data centers and other AI infrastructure projects — now, reports allege some of these groups have ties to Chinese financing.” Botelho: “As usual, just follow the money. There are growing concerns right now that China could actually be sabotaging the U.S. — shocking, I know — in the artificial intelligence race through backing ‘organic’ — I say that with quotes — opposition to a massive new Utah data center, with supporters arguing the project could create jobs and strengthen our national security.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 5/27/26] 
   
• Fox Business host Charles Payne said on Jesse Watters Primetime that Sanders is “working with some of the Chinese — to be quite frank with you — to kill our AI industry” and that “if the Democrats were to take power in the next presidential election it could be the beginning of the downfall of America” because “we have to keep this AI dominance in place.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 5/15/26]
   
• Fox was forced to apologize after repeatedly hosting O’Leary and amplifying his claims that several local Utah organizations and individuals opposing his proposed data center were being funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party. Bartiromo said: “Kevin O'Leary appeared as a guest on this program back on May 11 and discussed the ongoing controversy surrounding his planned data center project in Utah. Now, he made certain claims relating to the opponents of that project. Mr. O'Leary has now corrected the record and explained that he has no evidence that the Alliance for a Better Utah, Elevate Strategies, Josh Kanter, Taylor Knuth, or Gabrielle Finlayson are funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party. Fox News Media is likely — likewise aware of no evidence that they are funded by or acting at the direction of or in coordination with Chinese interests in opposing Kevin O'Leary's project. Fox News Media apologizes for the error.” [Media Matters, 6/10/26, 6/26/26]

• According to WIRED, experts are skeptical of “claims that Beijing is directly and intentionally involved in the US data center discourse” and “research indicates that domestic US actors are leading the online anti-data-center conversation.” While Kevin O’Leary has amplified a report from the Bitcoin Policy Institute that claimed Chinese state media is “openly campaigning against US AI data centers,” Graham Webster, a research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, said that examples highlighted in the report “don’t match other documented cases of known Chinese influence campaigns, especially when it comes to coverage in state media like China Daily, an English-language newspaper,” WIRED reported. Additionally, social media analytics company Graphika told WIRED that its “ongoing research indicates that domestic US actors are leading the online anti-data-center conversation.” [WIRED, 6/12/26; Media Matters, 6/10/26] 
   
• In Utah, the site of O’Leary’s massive and controversial data center project, some Republican voters told The New York Times they would “vote against any incumbent who supported the project.” Stratos, a hyperscale data center that O’Leary plans to finance, “has become a crucial issue in Utah’s June 23 primaries,” the Times wrote. “What stands out about Mr. O’Leary’s Stratos Project is his celebrity and the politics of its opponents — most of them Republicans and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, unaccustomed to rebelling against their own leaders.” [The New York Times, 6/14/26]
   
• Fox News’ own polling found that two-thirds of Americans oppose having data centers in their communities. The June poll found that 78% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans would oppose “building a data center in your area to support artificial intelligence technology.” [Fox News, 6/18/26]
   
• In Oklahoma, Michigan, Maryland, and South Dakota, Republicans have sponsored moratoriums barring data center permit approval, expansions, or new construction. According to MultiState, “after considering a statewide moratorium on data center construction,” South Dakota lawmakers “ultimately passed a more limited measure (SD SB 135), which prohibits the state from limiting local governments' authority to regulate or ban data centers. It didn't kill the moratorium concept, but instead granted that authority to localities.” Maryland’s and Oklahoma’s moratorium bills died in committee, while legislation in Michigan appears to be stalled. [Multistate, 5/7/26; Rockefeller Institute of Government, 6/10/26; Oklahoma Watch, 2/20/26; Michigan Advance, 2/27/26; Bill Track 50, accessed 6/30/26, accessed 6/30/26; South Dakota Legislature, Legislative Research Council, accessed 6/30/26; Michigan Legislature, accessed 7/1/26, 7/1/26]
   
• Multiple Republican candidates in this year’s midterms have supported data center opposition and AI regulation, and some have seen success. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn are all Republicans who were critical of data center expansion during their campaigns. While both Massie and Mace lost their races, Lahn won against a Trump-backed candidate to become the Republican nominee. Republican Tom Leonard, who dropped out of the race for Michigan governor in April, pushed during his campaign “for a temporary moratorium on building” new data centers, according to The Hill. And in Pennsylvania, Republican gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity is attempting to tie Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro to data centers in an attempt to win favor with voters. [ABC 27 WHTM, 6/8/26; The Hill, 3/15/26; WILX 10, 4/23/26; Politico, 5/19/26; Cincinnati Public Radio, 5/13/26; Iowa Public Radio, 6/3/26; CNN, 6/10/26]
   
• Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on June 10 “unveiled a set of sweeping recommendations to rein in rampant data center development, urging Texas lawmakers to aggressively regulate the tech industry in a state that has a reputation for welcoming new development with open arms,” according to Grist. Abbott, who the Austin American-Statesman writes “has been a strong supporter of the tech boom in Texas, touting the state as the ‘epicenter of AI development,’” directed the Public Utilities Commission and Electric Reliability Council of Texas “to ensure new data centers do not pass on costs for new electrical infrastructure to ratepayers” and “called on lawmakers to require data centers to use water efficiently and to repeal their lucrative sales tax exemptions.” [Grist, 6/22/26; Austin American-Statesman, 6/10/26]
   
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who Politico described as “one of the most outspoken Republicans nationally calling for artificial intelligence regulation,” signed a bill in May that “imposes detailed requirements for the construction and operation of data centers, focusing on electricity and water usage.” DeSantis also recently spoke out against the White House “pushing to block states from creating their own safeguards” against AI, according to Politico. DeSantis wrote in a social media post, “Preempting states re: AI without enacting a sensible federal framework is just an amnesty for Big Tech.’” [USA Today, 5/7/26; Politico, 6/11/26]
   
• Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who ABC News reports is the frontrunner in the GOP primary for Arizona governor, called the state’s three-year moratorium on tax incentives for new data centers “the right move” by incumbent Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. During a June 17 debate, Biggs said, “Data processing centers are going to chew up probably 350 to 650 megawatts of power, depending on the size of that data processing center. They’re going to use water. … Here’s where the real rub is: Where is the power going to come from, and where is the water going to come from?” [ABC News, 6/18/26; YouTube, Fox 10 Phoenix, 6/19/26; Fox 10 Phoenix, 6/17/26]