Meta president warns election backlash will make data centers harder to build

Meta is pitching AI as a technology whose benefits should reach everyone. But voters are pushing back on the facilities that support it. Speaking at the WSJ Tech conference on November 4, Meta President Dina Powell McCormick warned that election-driven opposition would make data centers harder to build—and said host communities need tangible benefits.

Powell McCormick linked the harder construction outlook to Democratic midterm victories and campaigns opposing data-center development. She also acknowledged a failure by the industry: it had “not done as good a job as we needed to explain the benefits of these investments,” TechCrunch reported.

The ballot-box obstacle is already real

The Washington Post reported that voters in at least 38 jurisdictions passed bans or restrictions on data centers on November 3. That result concerns direct limits on development, alongside the electoral victories Powell McCormick cited. It is not a single nationwide prohibition: the votes covered restrictions as well as bans.

Powell McCormick argued that the resistance reaches beyond individual buildings. A data center is the visible expression of AI that residents can reject in their own community, she said. In her view, that makes a local construction dispute partly a judgment about the technology itself, rather than only the terms of a particular project.

Her answer combined a wider promise with a local bargain. She pointed to potential benefits in education and cancer treatment, arguing that people should have fair, transparent access to AI.

The bargain Meta says works

For the communities hosting the facilities, Powell McCormick described a more concrete set of terms. She said successful projects depend on residents receiving benefits, and outlined the approach Meta uses to secure local deals. The elements she identified reach across operating costs, public services, employment and politics:

• Meta pays for its own electricity.
• Tax surpluses resulting from data centers go toward teachers and first responders.
• Projects use local labor and seek bipartisan support.

She said construction was already difficult, while arguing that states increasingly recognize which arrangements work. Looking ahead, she expects projects to face more review and to be weighed against whether local constituents actually want them.

Demand for computing does not settle where to build

Meta has substantial infrastructure at stake. Powell McCormick said the company has been building data centers for 20 years to support its social-networking products. It now has facilities in 23 states, she said, with five planned projects of at least one gigawatt, including one in Texas.

She separately defended the commercial value of capacity Meta has already built. The company receives calls every day from prospective customers seeking to lease that computing power, she said.