Why US voter anger at Big Tech is only just beginning

Some pundits have described the US midterm election backlash against the Republican Party on Tuesday night as being partly driven by a resistance to Big Tech and artificial intelligence but, more specifically, a reaction to the controversies surrounding data centres in America.

That’s largely true, but I disagree with those who say that concerns over these issues will subside following the midterms in which the Democratic Party has emerged victorious.

We may have just hit the tip of the iceberg when it comes to anger directed at Big Tech. This anger is more than just a matter of partisan politics and is going to continue to build as Americans shift their focus to the 2028 US presidential election.

Even though President Donald Trump will not be able to run again, and therefore won’t be on the 2028 ballot, his impact on the technology executives is unlikely to go away anytime soon.

Despite widespread criticism of his over-the-top campaign style, hostility towards reporters and disregard for facts, Mr Trump somehow defied the odds to return to the White House in 2024. While it remains to be seen if it happened overtly or subliminally, tech executives appear to have adopted those same controversial tactics.

For several years now, despite evidence of growing anger in many parts of the country over data centres suddenly popping up next to communities, executives and proponents of unregulated AI have continued to disregard concerns about noise, waste, environmental effects and water consumption.

In some instances, knowing full well that there was opposition to data centres, various companies and developers have continued to sneak into communities through non-disclosure agreements that have made it almost impossible for people to get prior information about construction and potentially fight back. In one sense, the modus operandi is comparable to Trump’s own governance style of keeping blinders on and hoping that sheer force of will, pithy slogans and aggressive marketing will prevail over any opposition.

In the lead-up to the midterms, despite being aware that public sentiment against data centres was rising and worries about AI were increasingly apparent, Mr Trump insisted on a number of occasions that all the commotion was a hoax. He even implied that foreign governments might be behind the anger.

Sure, there are instances of certain countries using social media to fuel anger among Americans, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to actual domestic concerns about AI and data centres. Yet despite hundreds of community meetings taking place in city councils, townhalls and municipal gatherings across the US, tech executives have kept insisting that all this anger must be a conspiracy.

Kevin O’Leary, an entrepreneur best known for his abrasive personality on the reality TV series Shark Tank, appears to have taken a page from the Trump playbook. He insisted that opposition to his proposed 40,000-acre data centre in Utah state was the result of Chinese government attempts to sow division in the US.

It would have been easier for Mr O’Leary to acknowledge the pushback and make adjustments to his proposed data centre. Instead, he kept pushing the hoax narrative. Not only did this anger the residents of Utah’s Box Elder County, but the matter went to court. Mr O’Leary has since faced several defamation lawsuits for his claims from community groups opposed to his data centre.

Even Fox News, hardly a bastion of liberal politics, progressive community-organising and data centre opposition, shielded itself following the entrepreneur’s unsubstantiated claims and apologised for airing them in the first place.

“He [Mr O’Leary] made certain claims relating to the opponents of his project,” one anchor said. “[He] has now corrected the record and explained he has ‘no evidence’ that the [advocacy group] Alliance for a Better Utah, [and activists] Josh Kanter or Taylor Knuth are funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party.”

These days, it’s difficult for most Americans to avoid the growing social media presence of the tech executives, who flood the zone with posts about the apparent benefits of the unprecedented AI boom.

In several instances, it appears as though these posts – often coupled with video clips from podcast interviews – aren’t cleared with their public relations consultants. Some executives seem to have, mistakenly, bought into the narrative that “the public rewards President Trump’s authenticity, so surely they’ll reward mine”.

In a recent interview, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman attempted to address the ongoing AI-induced RAM shortage, which has led prices of most consumer devices to rise. Speaking to the Cheeky Pint podcast, Mr Altman essentially implied that personal computers, smartphones and laptops were setting back the AI movement.

“From a global allocation perspective, actually, it’s quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world’s limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer, and being used maybe 5 per cent of the time,” he said, drawing criticism from Elon Musk, his long-time Big Tech rival.

Meanwhile, just weeks after Mr Trump insisted that AI was suffering a branding problem and pushed for everyone to start calling it “super intelligence”, OpenAI seems to have started the process of rebranding its data centres.

Show caption: US President Donald Trump wants all government agencies, inc…

Democrats are known to be bigger proponents of regulation, at least historically. And once they take control of the Senate and the House of Representatives in January, they will probably try holding Big Tech more accountable. Yet there is little reason to believe that any of the top executives will engage in an honest post-election introspection.

As long as they continue to emulate Mr Trump’s tactics, the anger being felt by the American electorate will continue to percolate.

That sets the stage for the next presidential contest, in which tech-related concerns continue to be on display for a world that waits to see what direction the US voters take.