The small Utah county fighting a massive data center
On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti
WBUR
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 20 May 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A rural county at the edge of the Great Salt Lake. A multimillionaire celebrity businessman. A shadowy state agency. What Box Elder County, Utah’s fight over a 40,000-acre data center reveals about America’s AI future.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Some follow the noise. |
| 0:03.0 | Bloomberg follows the money, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion-dollar swings. |
| 0:08.9 | There's a money side to every story. |
| 0:11.4 | Get the money side of the story. |
| 0:13.5 | Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. |
| 0:18.3 | Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken? |
| 0:21.8 | A podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrum School of Business. |
| 0:26.4 | A recent episode explores the challenges and opportunities in decarbonizing one of the world's most carbon-intensive industries, ocean freight shipping. |
| 0:35.0 | Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode. |
| 0:40.3 | Hey, it's Megna Chakra-Bardi. Before we get to today's episode, I want to just take a second to encourage you to join the new On Point Club. |
| 0:49.7 | For just $7 a month, you get first access to the jackpot every week, other exclusive content, |
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| 1:17.3 | Okay, here's today's show. WBWR Podcasts, Boston. |
| 1:39.6 | On May 4th, in northwestern Utah, people packed into a building at the Box Elder County Fairgrounds. |
| 1:42.7 | They were there for a special meeting of the County Commission. |
| 1:46.3 | We expect you to be kind and... Enough! |
| 1:50.5 | It was about a thousand people. |
| 1:52.3 | It was over a thousand people. |
| 1:54.6 | Tamara Williams and his mom Brenna were there. |
... |
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