Federal agencies have been secretly monitoring Americans who oppose data centers — labeling peaceful protest as "anti-tech violent extremism." At the same time, a Texas county surrendered its moratorium under legal pressure, and Google just signed a $32 billion deal with SpaceX.
🚨 **COMMUNITY** — More than 1,000 pages of unpublished DHS, FBI, and fusion center reports reveal a sweeping national surveillance effort targeting citizens who oppose data center construction. A Philadelphia fusion center classified "disruptive First Amendment activity" as an indicator of domestic violent extremism. Surveillance flagged town halls, budget meetings, and civic gatherings in Arlington and Fairfax County, Virginia. The classification "anti-tech violent extremism" does not appear in any previously published DHS or FBI guidance.
⚖️ **LEGAL** — Hill County, Texas unanimously rescinded a data center moratorium after developer RCM Hill filed a federal lawsuit on May 27, arguing the county exceeded its legal authority. The company had spent nearly $1 million and 16 months pursuing Project Aquila — a 1,235 MW campus on 800+ acres. The moratorium was reversed in less than two weeks.
⚡ **POWER** — PJM Interconnection, the grid operator serving 65 million Americans across 13 states, projects a 6 GW reliability shortfall by 2027. U.S. data center demand hits 75.8 GW in 2026 and is on track to nearly double by 2030. About 70% of the nation's grid was built in the 1950s–70s and is nearing end of life.
🏗️ **NEW BUILD** — Walbridge, Oracle, and OpenAI officially broke ground on "The Barn" — a $16 billion, 1 GW data center campus on 250 acres in Saline Township, Michigan. The project, part of OpenAI's Stargate initiative, is the single largest economic investment in Michigan history.
💰 **INVESTMENT** — Google agreed to pay SpaceX $920 million per month — roughly $32 billion total — for access to 110,000 NVIDIA GPUs at Elon Musk's xAI data centers. The contract runs October 2026 through June 2029. SpaceX disclosed the deal in an amended Nasdaq IPO filing. The combined SpaceX-xAI entity is now valued at $1.25 trillion.
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