Musk’s SpaceX makes MASSIVE $74 billion data centers investment despite voter backlash

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: As always, the commercial breaks are even better than the show. Now to a story that we mentioned earlier, okay? SpaceX's massive investment in data center development. The company is now putting $24 billion into a Texas facility and $50 billion into an Arizona facility, totaling $74 billion total. Okay, the group chat is still here. Let's be clear. The American people voted, did not vote to end AI or data centers, right? Soon after the election, Tallarico even tweeted at Elon Musk, like you say out of politics, let's get to business. Is there a lane where you're actually going to see them working together? In this case, Musk is saying, I'm doing it on my land. I'm bringing my own power. That's fine. That's great. As long as they're data centers. [00:00:42] Speaker 2: I think the issue was, first of all, data centers became the proxy for all the angst about AI, jobs, whatever, the billionaires wandering into the White House. Now it's about how much development should we do and how should it be done? If there's no NDAs, closed water systems, electrical guarantees, electric price guarantees, all manner of things, not filthy. Elon started the mess by creating the Memphis situation. And so, sure, if he wants to pay for it and it's environmentally sound, which he has some history of having problems with that. But if he does that and he cooperates with the state and there's no NDAs and the citizens get to decide with him, that's fine. [00:01:20] Speaker 1: Then is this a clear opportunity for Democrats to actually show who's boss, right? Take you back. Take us back one week ago when we saw the market fall out of bed on the notion that like, uh-oh, there's blue. Now you've got a Democratic governor in Texas. You have one in Ohio. They're going to stop these. Is this the lane for Hina Hossa and others to say, hold on a minute. It is not all or nothing. Let's actually do something and actually prove themselves and actually communicate it to be the pro-business party, which what Republicans did the last two days, two years, was not pro-business. It was pro a certain group. Pro magazine. Cutting a slice. [00:01:56] Speaker 3: I think so, yes. I also don't think, and I'm curious what Cara thinks, I don't think you're going to have some massive AI regulation bill come through Congress. The pieces aren't there for that. But I do think that you might see something resembling the Ratepayer Protection Act that died in the Senate. But something that looks at kind of cost of living concerns connected to tech, whether you're talking about electricity and water, who pays for what, that is a lane that Democrats are carving out for themselves. I talked to Greg Kesar, who's very outspoken about AI, about this. He did not say moratorium on data centers, very pointedly. Like, they are looking for a way to do something. They recognize the economics, but they also know that their voters do see data centers as like an object of hatred. [00:02:50] Speaker 1: While Josh Hawley is joining progressive Democrats and calling for a moratorium. [00:02:54] Speaker 4: A phrase that I hate in the AI universe is pacing the frontier. But I think there'll be time I'm pacing in a different sense here. I think that's the best outcome of all of this. I think the people across this country were alarmed at how quickly everything was happening, how little agency they had over that. To bring it back to Jensen Huang, he was, if not the chief cheerleader for that, somebody who was talking endlessly about the competition with China and the need for the U.S. to move fast. I think that's what we're going to see here over these next 18 months or two years is hopefully cooler minds prevailing. And this being done in a more sensible way that deals with a lot of these other ancillary policy issues that come with the construction of these data centers. [00:03:27] Speaker 5: But we have to, like, Americans believe these things are bad. Believe. It doesn't matter whether or not they know they're bad. They're not talking about closed systems or anything. They believe this is bad for them. It's bad for their bills. It's bad for water. I live in the West, right? Box Elder County. Republicans occupy Box Elder County where Mr. Wonderful wanted to build this thing, right? Kevin O'Leary. Kevin O'Leary. This issue cuts across regular boundaries when it comes to politics, especially out West, because public lands are such a big deal. Development is such a big deal. Water, we're always short of it or we're going to be short of it. [00:04:08] Speaker 2: It depends on where you are. If you're in Michigan, you have a very different story. You know, I interviewed the mayor of East Lansing, Michigan, and he put together a really good data center package for the area. It was in an old steel mill, closed loop water system, away from people, not noise, no ecological issues. And the citizens voted it down. So it's a question of changing people's perceptions that they feel in control. And I think part of this election was about that, is these billionaires run right over us. It sort of feels like the Gilded Age, right? [00:04:34] Speaker 5: And so back to your Democrat thing, which is if they if they do find something that they want to get done with Donald Trump and it's some watered down AI bill, like there will be an even worse backlash for them in 2028. [00:04:46] Speaker 3: So do they have to say to voters, this is what you get from this thing? Because it's not like there's a great narrative of what the data center is for. If the data center exists to take your job, make your life worse, you know, make your teenager, right, make your teenager suicidal. OK, then what's the positive? Look, we already have data centers. [00:05:05] Speaker 2: Virginia has like hundreds and hundreds. I mean, they all do and they do different things as well as Amazon warehouses. This is all happening all across the country. I think it's an idea that these people are just shoving this at citizens without their input. And that's what that was about. And a lot of these activists and, you know, some of them, that's exactly what it's about. I didn't NDAs. They're buying our legislators. They're doing this. And I think if they if it's participating, it's going to be hard to shift back liking. [00:05:31] Speaker 5: Well, and just real quick, the hyperscalers are at the bottom. But then you have the the the AI guys at the top on the fancy stages here going, we're going to put millions of people out of work and maybe we'll end the world. Right. So it's it's it's it's a it's a strategic messaging issue. It's a practical issue. [00:05:48] Speaker 6: And don't worry, you'll be dead. Right. Hey, it's Rachel. I am so glad to see you at the end of that clip, because this is where I get to tell you about a new way to watch all our clips and all of our shows and everything on MSNOW on your phone or your tablet or your laptop. You can watch things live or recorded. Plus, you can ask me and all the other hosts and reporters questions in our weekly live chats. You can go to MSNOW slash membership or just click below. Thanks.