Kevin O'Leary and Fox News Network have asked a federal judge to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by two Utah advocacy groups and their leaders over claims linking them to China during the dispute over O'Leary's proposed Box Elder County data center. Alliance for a Better Utah, Elevate Strategies, Joshua Kanter and Gabrielle Finlayson filed the suit July 15 in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.
The suit focuses in part on comments O'Leary made during a May 11 interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. According to KSL.com, Kanter, founder of Alliance for a Better Utah, and Finlayson, a senior partner with Elevate Strategies, say O'Leary falsely linked them to China. During the interview, he singled them out and suggested opponents of the Box Elder County project were acting as proxies for the Chinese government. “This is the CCP at work here,” O'Leary said, according to the outlet.
The plaintiffs allege O'Leary sustained a weekslong smear campaign, repeating claims across at least 10 media appearances that they were agents of China and had engaged in criminal conduct. They also allege Fox News played a central role in spreading those claims. O'Leary denies that his statements were defamatory, arguing they were opinion and rhetorical hyperbole rather than assertions of fact.
O'Leary and Fox Push Back in Court Filings
O'Leary's motion argues the suit improperly groups together 10 media appearances, numerous social media posts, four plaintiffs and statements made over several weeks. He says he did not accuse the plaintiffs of crimes and instead inferred a connection between their content and a source linked to the Chinese Communist Party. The filing also argues the plaintiffs have not adequately shown malice, a key legal threshold in defamation cases.
Fox News filed a separate motion, arguing its conduct does not show malice and that O'Leary's on-air comments were nonactionable opinions. The network also says that interviewing O'Leary alongside speakers with differing views reflected good journalism rather than actual malice, according to KSL's report.
Fox News says it aired corrections after receiving a correction demand from the plaintiffs on June 5, with corrections on five programs that had hosted O'Leary on the data center issue. O'Leary also posted a social media statement June 25 saying he had no evidence that either organization, Finlayson or Kanter individually was funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party. Bartiromo read a similar statement on her program the next day, KSL reported.
The Data Center Fight Behind the Lawsuit
The lawsuit grew out of the fight over O'Leary Digital's proposed data center campus in Box Elder County. Project proponents, including O'Leary, have presented the centers as important to national security and to countering China's potential technological threat. Critics have raised concerns about the project's environmental effects and water use.
Published capacity figures for the proposal differ. KSL.com reported that O'Leary Digital's plan calls for data centers and up to 9.5 gigawatts of power-generating capacity. Data Center Record, meanwhile, lists the proposed Stratos Project with 9.5 megawatts of disclosed capacity; the available records cited here do not resolve the discrepancy. Data Center Record also describes the proposed campus as covering 40,000 acres and including its own natural-gas power plant.
Alliance for a Better Utah advocates for progressive policies, while Elevate Strategies says it works to boost progressive power through campaigns with political candidates and causes. Box Elder County commissioners unanimously passed a 180-day moratorium on new data centers and data center power plants on unincorporated land on June 10, according to Data Center Record.
The Moratorium and the Stratos Project
The county's June 9 notice said the proposed 180-day moratorium would exempt the Stratos Project because projects under the Municipal Industrial Development Authority (MIDA) do not go through standard local land-use approval processes, according to Box Elder County. The county notice therefore indicates that the moratorium did not cover O'Leary Digital's proposal.
