Kevin O’Leary and Tucker Carlson clashed over AI, taxpayer subsidies for O’Leary’s planned Utah data center project, and China in a wide-ranging interview published Wednesday.
In response to Carlson, who questioned why taxpayers should help fund infrastructure that could primarily benefit tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft and Google, the “Shark Tank” investor defended Utah’s development as a necessary investment in America’s AI future.
Mr. Carlson repeatedly asked Mr. O’Leary why taxpayers should subsidize a private company whose tenants include “some of the wealthiest companies in the world.”
“Not necessarily,” O’Leary said, referring to taxpayers, adding that states that don’t subsidize such projects “just don’t get the contracts. It’s a competition.”
When Carlson pressed for tax cuts, O’Leary said incentives are standard practice for major projects. Carlson argued that the tax cuts still shift costs to ordinary taxpayers.
“Why, if it’s such a good business, are you asking taxpayers to help pay for it instead of giving them a stake in the company?” Carlson asked.
The interview comes amid mounting backlash against O’Leary’s proposed 40,000-acre Stratos data center project in Utah. Opponents say it could strain the state’s water and power resources and create relatively few long-term jobs.
The project, approved unanimously by the County Commission, is expected to consume up to 9 gigawatts of energy, more than double Utah’s current electricity usage.
Mr. O’Leary dismissed many critics as “professional protesters” and argued that the center would foster significant economic growth and employment opportunities in the region, saying it would create jobs and generate tax revenue compared to other manufacturing projects competing for state incentives.
Carlson and O’Leary also sparred in the interview over whether AI would create or destroy jobs. O’Leary argued that new technologies have historically created industries that are impossible to predict in advance. Carlson countered that O’Leary’s own examples (using AI to catalog medical scans and photos) show that machines will replace human labor.
O’Leary said that even more than labor issues, geopolitical battles with China are at the heart of the AI race.
“Would it be better for all of us who are developing these data centers to put down our shovels and stand still while the Chinese accelerate their development?” He said the United States and its allies need to expand their power generation and data center capabilities or risk falling behind Beijing both technologically and militarily.
Carlson remained skeptical of taxpayer-backed incentives for multibillion-dollar AI projects, arguing that the state was transferring wealth from ordinary taxpayers to some of the nation’s wealthiest corporations.
“Welcome to America, buddy,” O’Leary replied. “It’s been going on like this for 200 years.”
O’Leary is a Canadian citizen.