Data Center Backlash Turns to Threats and Violence as Anger Spreads

A foiled plot to attack a UFC event at the White House this month listed data centers among the grievances of the group accused of planning it, the latest sign that anger over artificial intelligence infrastructure is moving from zoning fights to threats and, in some cases, violence.

Five people have been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the plot, which targeted the UFC Freedom 250 card held on June 14 on the South Lawn of the White House. Authorities say the group planned to set off explosive-laden drones over the crowd, then shoot attendees and high-value targets as they fled.

The investigation began June 10, when a 19-year-old suspect’s mother called police and said her son had stockpiled weapons and joined an online group that voiced grievances about government corruption, the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and “data centers taking up all the water in communities,” according to prosecutors.

“It was a serious threat,” Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn said, adding that the event was never at risk and that some suspects remain at large. Data centers were one of several grievances cited in the case, alongside U.S. support for Israel, but their presence in a plot against the president shows how quickly the buildings that house AI servers have become a target for public anger.

Violent Escalation in Anti–Data Center Backlash

Opposition to AI and the facilities that help it has grown into a movement over the past year. Most of it is peaceful, but a small and growing share has turned to intimidation.

In the early hours of April 10, prosecutors say, Daniel Moreno-Gama threw a Molotov cocktail at the San Francisco home of OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, then walked to the company’s headquarters and threatened to burn it down. Investigators say they found writings in which he opposed AI and warned of “our impending extinction.”

Four days earlier, Indianapolis City-County Councilman Ron Gibson found that 13 rounds had been fired into his home after he voted for a data center in his district. A note left under his doormat read, “No Data Centers.”

In Saline Township, Michigan, Treasurer Jennifer Zink resigned at a board meeting in May, citing death threats, including a wish that board members die of Lyme disease, tied to a 1.4-gigawatt project that is part of OpenAI and Oracle’s Stargate initiative. “I can’t take it anymore. The threats,” she said.

The board had voted against rezoning farmland for the project; the dispute was settled, construction proceeded, and recall efforts followed.

Researchers Warn of a New Strand of Extremism

The Soufan Center, a nonpartisan research group that tracks political violence, warned in November that online threats to sabotage data centers could produce “a new violent strand of extremism,” and reported in May that such rhetoric was beginning to appear in real-world targeting of people tied to AI and data center construction.

“Since early 2024, we have seen a spike in online rhetoric and activism that threatens physical actions against infrastructure and people involved in it,” Clara Broekaert, a research analyst at the center, told Heatmap News, adding that the threats increasingly name the officials who approve projects.

A study published in April by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point found that grievances are shifting from executives to local officials, because data centers make AI physical and concentrate its costs.

“Attacking a data center means attacking AI as a system,” Jordyn Abrams of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism said in the report.

Yannick Veilleux-Lepage, an associate professor at the Royal Military College of Canada who authored the study, told Newsweek that the opposition is “better understood as a grievance structure than a movement” rooted in conditions, including job losses and governance that failed to keep pace, that “map onto grievances we already know can cause political violence.”

“That’s what makes it durable: the same anti-AI narrative activates the far right, the far left, and environmental extremists at the same time,” Veilleux-Lepage said.

He attributed the shift toward local officials to a “substitution effect.” As executives gain security details and corporate campuses lock down, “the violence doesn’t disappear, it displaces toward softer, more accessible targets.”

Local officials, he said, “are far more exposed than CEOs and almost entirely invisible to counterterrorism frameworks. Their home addresses are public, they have no security detail.”

Why Data Centers Have Become a Target in Anti-AI Opposition

The facilities draw a wide set of concerns because they are visible and local, said Natalie Kerby of AI Forensics, an AI accountability group.

“Data centers can be a strong target for channeling distrust in AI because they bring together a series of concerns, such as the environment, energy costs, and economic factors, that can plug into pre-existing movements,” Kerby told Newsweek, describing a “growing, networked movement against data centers not only in the U.S., but internationally.”

Kerby pointed to an “inherent tension” in the fight: the facilities are positioned as infrastructure for future innovation, but their construction and maintenance, citing environmental impact, grid stress and limited job creation, are destructive to that future.

“This vision of the future concentrates the power and rewards of AI in the hands of a very few, while leaving many communities vulnerable to AI’s detrimental impacts,” she said.

The costs are appearing on utility bills. A March report from the Brookings Institution found that electricity costs had risen 42 percent since 2019.

“The fundamental question is whether middle-class families should subsidize the electricity needs of companies worth trillions of dollars,” said Sanya Carley, an energy policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

The buildout is large and growing. The International Energy Agency projects that data center electricity use will roughly double by 2030, and the five largest technology companies spent more than $400 billion on infrastructure in 2025. So is the opposition: the research group Data Center Watch found that opponents blocked or delayed about $98 billion in projects between March and June 2025.

Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, told the Senate Banking Committee on June 11 that the investment had become “increasingly risky and capital intensive.”

Polling Shows Growing Public Concern and Declining Support for AI Expansion

Half of U.S. adults now say increased use of AI in daily life makes them more concerned than excited, according to a Pew Research Center survey, up from 37 percent in 2021. A Gallup survey in May found that a majority of Americans oppose having a data center built in their area, citing water and energy use, pollution and rising utility bills.

The shift has been sharpest among young adults. A Gallup survey of 14- to 29-year-olds found excitement about AI fell 14 points in a year, to 22 percent, while anger rose 9 points, to 31 percent.

Politicians are responding, and the issue is shaping the 2026 midterms. Pew found in November that Republicans and Democrats are now about equally likely to say they are more concerned than excited about AI, after years in which Republicans were consistently more worried. An Economist/YouGov poll found that more than 70 percent of Americans think AI is advancing too quickly, including 68 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of Democrats.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed giving the public a “direct ownership stake” in the largest AI firms. Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Michigan, has called for regulating AI companies as public utilities, saying no other industry could “cause human demise to the level that AI is offering.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed a law requiring large data centers to pay the full cost of their power, saying no resident should pay “one more red cent” because of them. Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, a Republican, pushed O’Leary’s project to scale back its footprint.

Several Democratic governors who once recruited the industry have since moved to impose new limits. Josh Shapiro, JB Pritzker and Wes Moore have proposed new standards or paused incentive programs. Kathy Hochul is considering a one-year moratorium bill, and Katie Hobbs has moved to end a tax break she described as a “corporate handout.”

Republican governors Mike DeWine and Spencer Cox have similarly paused incentives and restricted water use tied to the sector.

In Festus, Missouri, residents replaced every incumbent up for reelection after the town council approved a data center, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that about 1 in 3 Americans approve of the fast pace of construction.

The unease has reached college campuses too: this commencement season, speakers who praised AI were booed at the University of Central Florida, Middle Tennessee State University and the University of Arizona.

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This story was originally published June 19, 2026 at 2:00 AM.