DARK SIDE OF THE SWOON

It is about the electricity grid that powers 67 million Americans — from Illinois to New Jersey, from Virginia to Ohio — being pushed so far past its limits by AI data centers that the federal government is now seriously considering breaking it apart entirely.

This has never happened before. In nearly 100 years of American electricity history, nothing like this has ever been proposed.

And the reason it is being proposed is sitting in a data center near you right now.

Most Americans have never heard of PJM Interconnection. But every person living in 13 states depends on it for electricity every single day.

PJM Interconnection manages the web of power lines that runs electricity from the Illinois prairie to the Jersey Shore — serving 67 million people across 13 states. It coordinates which power plants run, when they run, and how power flows across the grid to reach your home, your hospital, your school, and your workplace. It has done this for nearly a century. It is the largest electricity grid operator in the United States. And right now — it is breaking.

PJM is not a government agency. It is not a public utility. It is a nonprofit organization that manages the grid on behalf of utilities, power companies, and ultimately — you. The electricity you used this morning to make coffee passed through PJM’s system. The air conditioner keeping you cool right now is running on PJM’s grid.

And the federal government just said: it may need to be broken up. Because of data centers.

The numbers tell the story better than any words can. PJM uses a system called capacity auctions to guarantee that enough power plants will be available to meet demand. In 2024, the price of that guarantee was $28.92 per megawatt-day. By 2026, that price had risen to $329.17 per megawatt-day. That is not a typo. That is an increase of more than ten times — in two years. One auction alone added an estimated $9.4 billion in costs — translating to an 82% jump in expenses for consumers. The Natural Resources Defense Council projects that cumulative extra consumer costs could reach between $100 billion and $163 billion through 2033.

$163 billion. Taken from the pockets of 67 million Americans. Over the next seven years. Because data centers are consuming electricity faster than the grid can supply it.

In plain English — what this means on your actual bill: DC residents saw Pepco bills rise about $10 per month from the latest capacity auction. Western Maryland faces roughly $18 more per month. Ohio about $16 more per month. And the Trump administration estimates a PJM-wide average hit of 15% versus the pre-AI baseline — meaning before AI data centers started consuming the grid, your bill was 15% lower than it is today. And it is going higher.

$16 more per month in Ohio. $18 more in Maryland. Starting June 1, 2026 — this month. Right now.

PJM’s own chief executive officer — the man who runs America’s largest electricity grid — has publicly stated that the current situation is “not tenable,” saying his organization can no longer ensure ample future electricity supplies while shielding residential consumers from rising bills. That is the CEO of the grid admitting, on the record, that he cannot do his job anymore because of AI data center demand.

The CEO of the grid. Saying he cannot guarantee both affordable electricity AND reliable electricity at the same time. Because the data centers are consuming too much.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has threatened to pull Pennsylvania out of PJM entirely — which would be a catastrophic fragmentation of the eastern United States’ electricity system. American Electric Power — one of the largest utilities in PJM’s territory — has threatened to leave and merge into a different grid. Even PJM’s own board members have been voted out amid the chaos. The CEO announced his departure. The chair of the board of managers was removed.

The CEO gone. Board members voted out. Pennsylvania threatening to leave. A major utility threatening to defect to a different grid.

The largest electricity system in America is fracturing. In real time. Because of AI data centers.

Federal officials have suggested breaking up PJM Interconnection — splitting the 13-state grid into smaller regional systems. The proposals on the table range from aggressive to radical. On the aggressive end: emergency procurement of around 15 gigawatts of backup capacity — a massive safety net to prevent blackouts. On the radical end: completely restructuring how PJM works, possibly splitting it into separate grid operators for different regions — effectively ending the unified eastern grid that has existed for nearly 100 years.

Ending the unified eastern grid. That has existed for 100 years. Because Amazon and Microsoft and Meta need more electricity for their AI servers.

President Trump — alongside the governors of several states — has called for a new electricity auction in which tech companies would pay for building new power plants by bidding on 15-year electric capacity contracts. In other words: if your data center is consuming this much electricity, you pay for the power plant that generates it. Not the 81-year-old widow in Hampton, Virginia. Not the family in Ohio already $16 deeper in the hole every month. You.

Make the tech companies pay for the power plants their data centers require. That is Trump’s proposal. And for once — on this one specific point — many Americans across the political spectrum agree with him.

When PJM purchased capacity for 2026-2027 and discovered the true scale of data center demand — the result was a capacity bill of $16 billion for a single year. That $16 billion increase was almost entirely due to forecasted data center expansion. And that $16 billion does not sit with Amazon or Microsoft or Meta. It flows through the utility system — and lands on your electricity bill. Every month. Starting now.

$16 billion. This year. From one auction. For one year of the PJM grid. Caused almost entirely by data centers. Paid by 67 million Americans who never voted for a single data center to be built.

PJM’s own market monitor has raised serious alarms about the data center demand forecasts being fed into the system — saying plainly: “Forecast data center load growth has been the primary cause to date and the accuracy of those forecasts is highly questionable.” In other words: the data centers promised they would need X amount of electricity. The grid planned for X. And now it turns out the real number is far higher than X. And the grid cannot handle it. And consumers are paying the difference.

The data centers overpromised. The grid overcommitted. The consumers are paying for the gap.

PJM’s own projections now show that the region will not meet required power reserves starting in June 2027 — just 12 months from now. That means if nothing changes, 67 million Americans will be living on an electricity grid that does not have enough power to meet peak demand. The shortfall is driven by a slow replacement of retiring power plants and rising demand from data centers. PJM’s June 2026 auction — happening this month — for the 2028/2029 delivery year is the next major pricing signal. Whatever it shows will determine just how high your bill will go in two years.

June 2027. 12 months away. America’s largest electricity grid projected to be short on power. For 67 million people. In the middle of what is already shaping up to be the hottest decade in recorded history.

This is the story that connects every other story in this series.

The dry wells in Indiana. The trailer park families in Kentucky. The 81-year-old widow who can’t pay her bill in Virginia. The Georgia data center that secretly drank 29 million gallons of water. The farmers leaving fields unplanted in Arizona. The children getting sick near facilities in North Carolina. The nuclear plants being bought up. The farmland being bulldozed. The shell companies with ridiculous names.

All of it flows into this one fact:

America’s largest electricity grid — the backbone of the power system for 67 million Americans — is being pushed so hard by AI data centers that the federal government is now discussing breaking it apart. The CEO of the grid says it is not tenable. The governor of Pennsylvania is threatening to walk away. A major utility is threatening to defect.

And the June electricity bill increase — $9.4 billion more across the system, paid by you — landed in accounts on June 1st. This month. Already.

NEWLY RELEASED: FBI Records Released By Judicial Watch Show Butler Deputy Had Email Contact With Thomas Crooks Before Trump Rally Shooting. The Butler Story Just Got Stranger......

Butler County Sheriff’s deputy exchanged emails with Thomas Crooks before the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt against Donald Trump, according to documents obtained by the conservative Judicial Watch through a FOIA lawsuit.

A heavily redacted July 17, 2024, FBI electronic communication summarized interviews with five Butler County Sheriff’s Office deputies conducted July 16, 2024. In one summary, a deputy said she checked her emails after being contacted by a New York Times reporter and found two email communications from Crooks. The specific subject of the emails was redacted.

The newly released FBI records show the deputy told investigators she had two email communications with Crooks prior to the shooting. However, the FBI heavily redacted the records, leaving the subject of the emails and the nature of the interaction hidden from public view.

The watchdog group said it obtained 48 heavily redacted pages from the FBI that include interview summaries and investigative communications tied to Crooks and the Butler rally shooting. The records also state that after Crooks was killed, a SWAT officer found a gray remote device with numerical buttons, an antenna and a cellphone in Crooks’ pocket.

Judicial Watch filed its lawsuit in July 2025 after the FBI did not respond to a July 2024 FOIA request seeking records related to Crooks and the assassination attempt. The request sought investigative files, interview summaries, reports, communications, media, database records and any FBI communications involving personnel, sources, contractors or assets and Crooks himself. The case is titled Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice.

His name is Will Hollingsworth. He is a former programmer and digital artist. He used AI tools in his work for years — and watched those same tools eventually replace him. And then he walked into his city council chambers on April 10, 2026 — in front of almost 100 neighbors — and said the seven words that made the whole country stop scrolling:

“We are being asked to drain our reservoirs, so a chatbot can write a poem.”

This is the speech every American needs to hear.

THE FOUR MINUTES THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

Hollingsworth stepped to the podium at the Ravenna City Council meeting — packed with almost 100 residents — and delivered what observers are calling one of the most articulate and devastating arguments against data center construction ever given at a public meeting. He addressed the council’s debate over a proposed 12-month moratorium on data center construction in the area. 

He didn’t yell. He didn’t wave signs. He just spoke — clearly, precisely, with the knowledge of someone who had worked inside the tech industry — and said what millions of Americans had been feeling but couldn’t put into words.

Hollingsworth tackled the water myth head-on: “They want us to trust a trillion-dollar industry that tells us, with a straight face, that they can suck five million gallons of water out of our ground a day, use it as a liquid heat sink and return it to our rivers without a single consequence.” He is skeptical that the forever chemicals produced in the cooling process won’t eventually find their way back into the water table — no matter how many studies say otherwise. 

Five million gallons. Per day. Out of the ground. Of a small Ohio town. Returned to the rivers. With no consequences. They want you to trust them on that.

Then came the line that the whole internet shared: “We are being asked to drain our reservoirs so a chatbot can write a poem or so our sheriff can generate a picture of himself standing next to Bigfoot.” 

The Bigfoot line. The local sheriff’s department had actually posted an AI-generated image of themselves arresting Bigfoot on Facebook — and Hollingsworth used it to make the most powerful point of his entire speech: this is what the water of 50,000 people is being sacrificed for. Not cancer research. Not clean energy. Not cures for disease.

AI-generated Bigfoot images. For a sheriff’s Facebook page.

The crowd roared. The internet exploded. “THEY ARE AN EXTRACTION” — THE LINE THAT DEFINES AN ERA

Hollingsworth then destroyed the jobs myth — the one that every data center developer leads with when they show up to a town hall: “A big employer who uses the water of 50,000 people — which only hires about 10 people — is not an employer. They are an extraction.” 

Extraction. Not investment. Not development. Not partnership.

Extraction. Like a mining company. They take what they need — your water, your electricity, your land, your tax breaks — and leave behind exactly as little as the law requires.

And then he said the line that hit deepest of all — the one that made even people who support AI stop and think: “We are being asked to fund a 21st century luxury with a 19th century resource heist.” 

A 21st century luxury. Paid for with a 19th century resource heist. AI chatbots. Funded by the water your great-grandparents drank. Funded by the electricity that should be powering your hospital. Funded by the farmland that fed your parents’ generation.

That is what is happening in Ravenna, Ohio. That is what is happening in all of America.

AND HE TRAINED THE VERY MACHINE THAT REPLACED HIM

Here is the part that hit the hardest on social media. The part that made people share the video millions of times.

Will Hollingsworth is a former programmer who used Midjourney — an AI image generation tool — in his daily work as a digital artist. In his own words, he “trained the very machine that would eventually replace me.” He fed it images. He refined its outputs. He made it better. And then it took his job. 

He built it. He fed it. He improved it. And then it took everything he had built his career around.

And now — instead of being bitter, instead of retreating — he walked into his city council meeting and used every skill he had developed across a career in technology to make the most powerful public argument against unchecked data center development that America has heard in 2026.

The machine took his job. So he used his voice.

AND IT WORKED

After Hollingsworth’s speech — after the chamber erupted in applause — the Ravenna City Council voted to approve a temporary moratorium preventing new data centers from being built in the area. The speech had done what no amount of formal lobbying or legal threats had managed to do: it changed minds. In real time. At a public meeting. In a town of 11,000 people in Ohio. 

The video went viral on Hollingsworth’s TikTok with more than 600,000 views. It was shared on X more than 250,000 times. It collected 49,000 likes on Reddit — where one user wrote: “God Damn that was good. Seriously this should be used as a script in every county these corporations are hustling.” National outlets from TechRadar to Tom’s Guide to Yahoo News covered it within days. 

A four-minute speech. At a city council meeting. In Ravenna, Ohio. Watched more than a million times across platforms. Inspiring communities across the country. And it actually worked.

The moratorium passed.

ERIN BROCKOVICH JUST JOINED THE FIGHT

And now — just one week ago — the most famous environmental advocate in American history stepped in.

Consumer advocate and environmentalist Erin Brockovich — whose real-life fight against corporate pollution became one of the most celebrated films in American history — announced she is joining the fight against AI data centers nationwide. She told CNN: “The size of these places is unbelievable” and called the rapid expansion of data centers across the country “shocking.” 

Erin Brockovich. The woman who took on Pacific Gas and Electric. Who stood up for the families of Hinkley, California when no one else would. Who proved that one person — with the right information and the right voice — can bring a trillion-dollar corporation to its knees.

She has now pointed that same energy at the data center industry. And she wants your help finding them.

Brockovich has launched a data center tracking initiative — publicly asking communities across America to report data centers being built in their neighborhoods, share documentation of permits and NDAs, and connect with her organization for support in fighting back. “Erin Brockovich’s next crusade is tracking new data centers across the US — and she wants your help,” was the headline that spread across tech and environmental media simultaneously. 

Will Hollingsworth in Ravenna, Ohio started a movement with four minutes and a microphone.

Erin Brockovich just picked up the torch.

Hollingsworth closed his speech with words that silenced the room — and then brought it to its feet: “I am not a cynic when it comes to technology. I am a believer in community. I believe that a drop of clean water for a Ravenna child is worth more than a billion AI-generated images. Let us choose the child.” 

Let us choose the child.

Not the server. Not the shareholder. Not the stock price. Not the press conference where Trump stands next to tech billionaires and announces $500 billion in buildings that are already falling apart.

The child. The water. The community. The future that belongs to the people who actually live here.

That is what Will Hollingsworth said. In four minutes. At a city council meeting. In a town most Americans had never heard of. And a million people heard him.

Share this speech with everyone you know. Let them choose the child too. 

Follow for more data centers updates

Source: Futurism — “Man at City Council Meeting Makes Devastating Case Against Proposed Local Data Center” (April 17, 2026)

This is not just about data privacy. It is about public trust.

If ordinary Americans are told that stealing, copying, or sharing someone’s Social Security information is a serious crime, then that same standard should apply when powerful people or government-linked teams are accused of mishandling sensitive data on a massive scale.

Reports and whistleblower claims have raised serious concerns about Elon Musk’s DOGE operation and its access to federal records, including Social Security data. The fear is simple but deeply alarming: if private information connected to millions of Americans was copied, moved, accessed, or shared without proper safeguards, this cannot be dismissed as a minor technical issue.

This kind of exposure can put people at risk of identity theft, financial fraud, disrupted benefits, and long-term privacy harm.

And let’s be honest. If a regular government employee walked out with private Social Security records, no one would call it “efficiency.” They would call it a scandal. There would be investigations, hearings, and demands for accountability.

So why should the reaction be different when the people involved are wealthy, politically connected, or operating under the banner of “government reform”?

That is what makes this situation so serious.

Americans did not agree to have their most sensitive personal information treated like a private experiment. Social Security numbers are not political tools. Federal databases are not playgrounds for billionaires. Privacy laws should not suddenly become flexible because someone has influence in Washington.

If people’s data was accessed or mishandled without lawful authority, a class action lawsuit may be exactly the kind of accountability needed. Because consequences should not only apply to ordinary citizens.

If the allegations are true, this is bigger than DOGE.

It is about whether powerful people can break the rules on a massive scale and still walk away untouched.

This story just broke wide open across Wisconsin — and it is now happening in states all across America.

The most powerful corporations in human history have figured out a way to move into your town, buy your neighbor’s land, and begin construction on a billion-dollar facility — all without ever telling you who they are, what they’re building, or what it will do to your electricity bill and your water supply.

And the shocking part? Your own elected officials — your mayor, your city council, your county attorney — signed legal agreements promising to keep it all secret from you.

This is not a conspiracy theory. This is documented. This is confirmed. And it is happening in your state right now.

In Beaver Dam, Wisconsin — a small city about an hour northeast of Madison — city officials signed a non-disclosure agreement on December 1, 2023. They did not sign it with Meta, one of the most recognizable companies on Earth. They signed it with a shell company no one had ever heard of called “Balloonist LLC.” The agreement referred only to a mysterious “project” — making no mention of a data center, no mention of Meta, and no mention of what was actually being planned for the community. Meta used not one but two separate shell companies to develop its Beaver Dam project entirely in secret — keeping residents in the dark for over a year while plans advanced. 

Balloonist LLC. That is the name Mark Zuckerberg’s company used to hide from the people of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

Beaver Dam is not the only Wisconsin community kept in the dark. At least four major Wisconsin data center projects were developed after local community leaders signed NDAs with the companies — or their disguised shell companies — preventing officials from telling residents what was being planned for their neighborhoods, their water, and their electricity grid. 

Four communities. Kept secret from their own residents. By their own elected officials. Who signed legal agreements they were pressured into signing.

Mason County Attorney John Estill — who signed an NDA for a data center proposal in Kentucky — captured the impossible position local officials find themselves in: “Either you want your government to be courting businesses and looking for development in your communities, or you don’t. And if you want them to be courting businesses and looking for growth in your local economies, then unfortunately, NDAs are part of the landscape.”

He’s not wrong. But he’s also describing a system where corporations have written the rules — and your government agreed to play by them. A system where the price of economic development is your right to know what is being built in your community.

In Laguna Park, Texas — where a secret data center was constructed the size of several large shopping centers — residents saw their utility bills spike almost immediately. Water bills increased by 20%. Electricity bills jumped 10%. The cost of upgrading local infrastructure to support the facility was passed directly to the people who had never been told the facility was coming. 

They never knew it was coming. They were never asked if they wanted it. And then their bills went up — to pay for infrastructure upgrades for a building they found out about after the concrete was already poured.

The secrecy has gotten so extreme that a team of researchers is now literally scanning satellite imagery from outer space to find data centers that companies are hiding from communities.

Researchers at Epoch AI — a nonprofit research institute — are using open-source intelligence, satellite imagery, building permits, and local legal documents to build an interactive map of data centers springing up across the United States. The buildings are being built in secret specifically to avoid backlash. So researchers are hunting for them from space — identifying their distinctive footprint of large, windowless concrete boxes near substations — before communities even know they exist. 

That is where America is in 2026. Scientists scanning satellites. Looking for secret data centers. Because companies are hiding billion-dollar buildings from the communities that will pay for them.

On April 24, 2026, Congresswoman LaMonica McIver introduced the AI Data Center Site Selection Transparency Act of 2026 — a bill that would require communities to be informed before deals are finalized about plans to build AI data centers in their neighborhoods, and would specifically ban municipalities from signing NDAs with data center developers. “When communities are denied information, they are denied a voice,” McIver said. “Your energy bills shouldn’t skyrocket because a developer snuck an AI data center into your neighborhood without giving you the opportunity to speak out.” 

A bill to ban the secret shell companies. To ban the NDAs. To give communities the right to know what is coming before it arrives.

Big Tech’s lobbyists are already working to kill it.

Meta called itself “Balloonist LLC.” They made your mayor sign a secrecy agreement. They built a billion-dollar data center. And the people of Beaver Dam found out when the construction equipment showed up.

This is happening in Wisconsin. In Kentucky. In Texas. In at least four states with confirmed NDA deals — and dozens more where the secrecy is so complete that researchers need satellites to find the buildings.

Your town could be next. And you would never know it was coming until it was too late to stop it.

ELON MUSK, PETER THIEL, AND SAM ALTMAN ARE IN A THREE-WAY WAR OVER THE FUTURE OF AMERICA’S DATA CENTERS — AND YOU ARE CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

You’ve been following this series. You know about the dry wells. The trailer parks. The electricity bills. The nuclear plants. The surveillance. The dead teenager. The empty Stargate field.

But underneath all of it — beneath every single story we’ve told — there is a war happening between the most powerful men in the world. A war over who controls the data centers. Who controls the AI. Who controls the future.

And it is getting nastier, more personal, and more dangerous by the week.

Here is the war that nobody is covering completely — because to cover it completely, you have to put all the pieces together at once.

THE THREE KINGS FIGHTING OVER AMERICA’S AI FUTURE

In one corner: Sam Altman — CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. His vision: AI should be controlled by a nonprofit-turned-corporation that answers to humanity. He is building Stargate. He convinced Trump to stand next to him at the White House. He survived a Molotov cocktail. He is raising the largest pool of AI capital in history.

In another corner: Elon Musk — founder of xAI, owner of X, head of DOGE, the most powerful man in Washington next to the President himself. He sued OpenAI. He publicly called Altman a fraud. He is building his own AI supercomputer called Colossus — as loud as an airport, running on jet engines in a residential area of Memphis, Tennessee.

And in the third corner: Peter Thiel — the billionaire venture capitalist behind Palantir, one of the most powerful AI surveillance companies in America. He flew to Rome in March 2026 for what the Vatican described as “secretive Antichrist lectures.” He is funding politicians, shaping policy, and building a vision of AI that the Pope himself just warned about.

Trump’s relationship with Musk, Altman, and the broader Silicon Valley AI elite has become one of the most consequential political dynamics in American history — three men with radically different visions of what AI should be, all competing for the President’s ear, his executive orders, and access to the federal contracts, data, and regulatory decisions that will determine who wins the AI race.

THE MUSK-ALTMAN WAR THAT SHUT DOWN GOVERNMENT

Elon Musk and Sam Altman were once friends and co-founders of OpenAI. Now they are engaged in one of the most bitter corporate feuds in American history. Musk sued OpenAI, alleging the company betrayed its founding mission to benefit humanity. Altman fired back publicly. Musk used his position inside the Trump administration — as head of DOGE — to attempt to use the Department of Justice to block OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit company, a move that would have been worth billions to Altman personally.

The head of DOGE. Using the Justice Department. To try to destroy a competitor’s company. While both men are building competing data centers that will consume the electricity of millions of Americans.

Meanwhile, Musk’s own data centers — built for his xAI company — have been at the center of multiple controversies. His “Colossus” AI supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee used 30 mobile gas turbines — essentially jet engines — to power the facility, creating noise levels comparable to an active airport in a residential neighborhood. Memphis residents filed complaints. Environmental groups sued. And Musk used his proximity to the Trump White House to fast-track permits that would normally have taken years. 

Jet engines. In a neighborhood. Fast-tracked by a man who runs the government’s efficiency department. Building a competitor to the company he tried to destroy using the Justice Department.

PETER THIEL AND THE “ANTICHRIST LECTURES” AT THE VATICAN

In March 2026 — the same month the Vatican was finalizing the Pope’s historic AI encyclical — Peter Thiel traveled to Rome for what the Vatican described as “secretive Antichrist lectures.” Thiel, a known contrarian and Christian nationalist philosopher, has long argued that AI represents an existential force that will either save or destroy Western civilization — and that the stakes are so high that conventional moral guardrails should not apply. 

Peter Thiel. At the Vatican. Giving secret lectures about the Antichrist. While the Pope was writing an encyclical warning that AI was becoming a new Tower of Babel.

Thiel’s company — Palantir — now has formal contracts with the Pentagon to process classified intelligence using AI. His vision of AI as a tool of geopolitical and military dominance is precisely what Pope Leo XIV condemned in Magnifica Humanitas when he warned against “an ‘armed’ logic of competition driven by the pursuit of geopolitical and commercial dominance.” The Pope issued that warning eleven days after Thiel’s Rome visit. 

The Pope issued his most important document eleven days after Peter Thiel gave secret lectures at the Vatican about AI and the Antichrist. The timing is not a coincidence. The Pope was responding to exactly what he saw and heard.

AND TRUMP IS PLAYING ALL THREE — AND AMERICA IS THE PRIZE

Trump signed Executive Order 14318 on July 23, 2025 — titled “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure” — specifically designed to override local community opposition and fast-track data center construction across America. The order allows federal authorities to bypass local zoning laws, environmental reviews, and community input processes that would normally slow or stop data center construction.

When your community voted no on a data center — and construction started anyway — this is why. A presidential executive order was specifically written to make your vote not matter.

The data center backlash has become a major political flashpoint ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. In Pennsylvania, Republican incumbents who supported data center development are now facing serious electoral challenges from voters who are furious about electricity bills and community impacts. Democrats who won governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia specifically ran on data center accountability. Both parties are now scrambling to figure out which side of this issue wins votes.

Musk vs Altman. Thiel at the Vatican. Trump overriding community votes. Pennsylvania Republicans running scared. Virginia governors elected on data center anger.

This is not a tech story anymore. This is a power struggle — the largest and most consequential fight over who controls the future of America — playing out in data center zoning meetings, White House briefings, Vatican conference rooms, and Memphis neighborhood associations simultaneously.

And at the center of it all — paying the electricity bills, drinking the drained water, breathing the diesel exhaust, watching their wells run dry — are the 330 million Americans who were never invited to the table.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Three men. Each worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Each with the ear of the most powerful government on Earth. Each building competing data centers. Each fighting to control what AI becomes. Each willing to use every tool available — lawsuits, executive orders, secret Vatican lectures, government contracts, military partnerships — to win.

Sam Altman survived a Molotov cocktail.

Elon Musk is running the government’s efficiency department while building a competitor to the company he sued.

Peter Thiel is giving secret Antichrist lectures at the Vatican while his company processes your classified data for the Pentagon.

And the rest of America is getting the bill.

Share this. Because understanding who is actually fighting over your water, your electricity, your privacy, and your future is the first step to taking it back.

Follow for more data center updates

Source: Fortune — “Communities are blocking billions in data centers. Big Tech has wagered $1 trillion otherwise.” (May 18, 2026)