When Kevin O\u2019Leary, a.k.a Mr. Wonderful, found that his Shark Tank-ian pitch to the people of Utah to put up a massive data center on their land received a collective, \u201cI\u2019m out\u201d from the citizenry, he insisted that the protestations weren\u2019t coming from true Utahans but rather from a Chinese influence campaign\u2014and swore he had \u201cguys\u201d who could prove it. On Thursday, he admitted that his source for those claims was his vivid imagination.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecently I appeared on various news programs and would like to clarify that I have no evidence that Alliance for a Better Utah, Elevate Strategies, Gabrielle Finlayson, Taylor Knuth or Josh Katner are funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party,\u201d O\u2019Leary wrote in a post on X<\/a> Thursday.<\/p>\n pic.twitter.com\/9wzF9Fz0Lu<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Kevin O’Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) June 25, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n O\u2019Leary\u2019s backtracking comes after he claimed that several Utah-based groups, founded and operated by Utah-based activists, were actually getting their talking points and funding from China. During an appearance on Fox News, he claimed that he had experts who did a \u201cdeep dig into the IP addresses\u201d of accounts criticizing his project and found \u201ctwo cells inside of Utah\u201d that were supposedly linked to China. He also alleged that there was a slush fund of \u201cmillions, hundreds of millions of dollars\u201d made available to the opponents of his data center by foreign adversaries.<\/p>\n Now O\u2019Leary is admitting what was pretty much obvious to anyone who listened to him or has paid any attention to the general reception of data centers across the country: he\u2019s full of shit, and the opposition is legitimate. According to ABC4<\/a>, Utah\u2019s local ABC affiliate, O\u2019Leary has also deleted past posts in which he claimed that anti-data center organizations were bought and paid for by China and other foreign actors.<\/p>\n The opposition to O\u2019Leary\u2019s planned Stratos Project may have simply become too loud to ignore. The project is expected to span two separate 20,000-acre sites in Box Elder County\u2019s Hansel Valley and Locomotive Valley, each hosting clusters of data centers. A recent poll conducted by Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics<\/a> found that 60% of Utah voters now oppose the project, compared to just 26% who offer any support for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n The backlash is also already coming for politicians involved in approving the project. Republican state senator Stuart Adams, the longest-serving president of the Senate in Utah history, lost a primary this week<\/a> to challenger Stephanie Hollist, an outspoken opponent of the data center. It seems likely more people will lose their seats as a result of the project, based on public outcry. O\u2019Leary must have decided it would be a bit too hard a sell to suggest that it was China rigging the vote, too.<\/p>\n \n