Kevin O’Leary responds to ‘outrageous’ demand to slash data center plan

Celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary isn’t backing out of plans to build a hyperscale data center campus in Box Elder County, even after Utah’s top lawmaker on Monday called for the project to be dramatically scaled back. “I’m not walking away,” O’Leary told The Salt Lake Tribune on Monday, hours after Senate President J. Stuart Adams sent a letter calling for a 75% reduction in the proposed 40,000-acre data center project. “It’s not who I am. I don’t work that way.” The letter from Adams, who also chairs the board for the Utah Military Installation Development Authority that approved the development, prompted so much outrage, O’Leary said, that his phone “lit up like it was going to melt.” The celebrity investor told The Salt Lake Tribune he didn’t hear from Adams ahead of receiving the letter and hasn’t yet talked to him about it. It “didn’t go over well,” he said, because it’s not the agreed-upon deal. “I made that deal with Adams,” O’Leary said. “We looked each other in the eye. It means a lot to me.” Reporting: Megan Banta and Jeff Parrott Video: Trevor Christensen The Salt Lake Tribune