Fox News Apologizes After O’Leary Retracts China Claim on Utah Data Center Critics

Fox News broadcast retractions and apologies across four separate programs on Fox News and Fox Business over a four-day period after Kevin O’Leary made statements linking critics of his planned Utah data center to Chinese interests. The Independent reported that O’Leary appeared on Fox on May 24 to discuss the project.

During a segment on The Big Weekend Show, host Johnny Joey Jones stated that O’Leary had corrected his initial comments regarding the Stratos Project data center development.

Jones added that the network found no proof that critics were operating under the direction of or in coordination with Chinese interests, and Fox News Media issued an apology for the error. O’Leary’s AI infrastructure project, nicknamed “Wonder Valley,” is planned for rural Utah on unincorporated land near the Great Salt Lake.

The project was originally envisioned as a 10,000-acre data center on 40,000 acres and is projected to require 9 gigawatts of power, exceeding the current energy usage of the entire state of Utah.

Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams demanded that O’Leary reduce the campus size by 75 percent and require stricter commitments on environmental impact, heat reduction, and water conservation. O’Leary’s team offered a 50 percent reduction, removing roughly 20,000 acres from the total land footprint.

The issue began during a May 11 broadcast of Fox’s Mornings with Maria, when O’Leary stated that China was the only adversary with a motive to stop the expansion of the U.S. electrical grid and AI capacity. O’Leary later posted on X that he has no evidence that Alliance for a Better Utah, Elevate Strategies, Gabrielle Finlayson, Taylor Knuth, or Josh Kanter are funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party.