5-19-26 Bonus Lunch Ep - Kevin O'Leary's Attempt To Smear Utah Women Falls Flat As His $100 Billion Datacenter Plan Backfires!
The Rush Hour With Dave Neal
Dave Neal
4.5 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Follow Gabi at @elevate_utah for more info!
Why residents in Utah are fighting back against a massive AI data center project tied to Kevin O'Leary
- The grassroots battle between local advocacy group Elevate Utah and billionaire-backed development interests
- Concerns over water usage, power consumption, land rights, and what this project could mean for local communities
- Is this the future of AI infrastructure in America, or another example of tech billionaires steamrolling small towns?
- Plus, the politics, money, media spin, and why more residents are saying enough is enough
Rush Hour breaks down the growing tension between Big Tech expansion and everyday Americans fighting to protect their communities. Buckle up.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today's guest on the Rush Hour podcast was catapulted into internet fame after being accused of being a Chinese asset by a Canadian multi-millionaire businessman hell bent on developing a massive data center, which would be two and a half times the size of Manhattan. |
| 0:14.4 | We're joined today by one of the creators of Elevate Utah, an advocacy group saving Utah with a whiteboard in a dream. |
| 0:20.7 | It's Gabby Finlayson. How are you? |
| 0:23.2 | I'm so good. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. |
| 0:25.8 | There was nothing funnier than watching Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank in his flip-flops |
| 0:31.3 | and a suit. I don't know if this is like Canadian summer casual, accuse you guys of being sort of funded by foreign governments when |
| 0:40.1 | he's from a foreign country trying to steal your land for a data center nobody wants. |
| 0:44.9 | Can you guys, can you catch me up on this? |
| 0:47.6 | Yeah, absolutely. |
| 0:49.1 | Yeah, the outfit is first and foremost, the most horrifying. |
| 0:51.8 | Yeah, it needs to be like Canadian tuxedo 2.0 or something. |
| 0:54.9 | I have no idea, but we need to ban this. But yeah, I mean, this has been such a crazy thing to |
| 0:59.9 | watch here on the ground. You know, Utah is a pretty conservative state. But the backlash from across |
| 1:04.9 | the political spectrum has been absolutely insane to this giant data center. I think, like, having someone |
| 1:10.3 | like Kevin O'Leary and a bunch of |
| 1:12.1 | the Republicans that are in office and control our state just really kind of steamroll the community |
| 1:17.7 | and say, this is what you're getting no matter what, like you're going to eat your AI vegetables |
| 1:21.8 | and you're going to be happy about it. And then having that backlash be so strong and so severe |
| 1:26.9 | that everyone started to kind of walk |
| 1:28.3 | this back. And even Kevin O'Leary, like the backlash to him saying that we are Chinese operatives, |
| 1:33.4 | he has even stopped talking about us specifically because of the backlash online. So, you know, |
| 1:39.9 | these folks don't always know what's going to come for them when they decide to put a giant thing |
... |
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