Sam Altman acknowledged widespread public opposition to AI data centers while confirming the departure of his dedicated data center operations lead.
OpenAI’s infrastructure ambitions are colliding with a non-technical challenge: mounting public backlash. CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the sentiment in an interview with Time, noting the awkward timing for a company planning to spend $50 billion on compute this year. “Clearly, people hate data centers—right now, at least,” Altman said. “People are pretty negative on AI.”
The shift coincides with internal restructuring. According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI’s head of data centers, Chris Malone, departed the company, a move confirmed by CNBC. In a statement, OpenAI noted that Malone had “recently reorganized” the infrastructure team.
Over the past year, OpenAI has rapidly scaled Stargate, its joint venture with SoftBank launched early last year to deploy up to $500 billion in U.S. AI infrastructure. By September 2025, the company had announced six domestic Stargate sites. When combined with its Abilene flagship and ongoing CoreWeave initiatives, these facilities bring total planned capacity to nearly 7 gigawatts. OpenAI has since expanded its footprint further, adding a Michigan campus exceeding 1 gigawatt, a Georgia project contracted for 3.2 gigawatts, and a recent agreement to secure approximately 8 gigawatts of IT capacity in southern Ohio.
The company indicates it is already looking past Stargate’s initial 10-gigawatt target, asserting that current compute resources remain insufficient. “If anything, we should have bought a lot more,” Sachin Katti, OpenAI’s executive overseeing compute strategy, told Time.
Altman’s assessment aligns with polling data. A May Gallup survey found that seven in ten Americans oppose local data center construction, including 48 percent who strongly object. Residents in targeted communities cite concerns over massive electricity consumption, rising utility bills, water usage, noise pollution, and strain on municipal infrastructure. Some industry estimates place the aggregate electricity costs of data centers at $23 billion.
This resistance is already translating into tangible financial headwinds for hyperscalers. At least 48 data center projects, representing $156 billion in capital investment, have been blocked or delayed due to local opposition. Although only 8 percent of those opposed to data centers reside near existing facilities, the backlash has achieved national scale.
Earlier this year, a Pew Research Center survey revealed that Americans view data centers more negatively than positively regarding their impact on household energy costs, the environment, and local quality of life. Among respondents who reported hearing extensively about data centers, 67 percent believed the facilities primarily harm household energy expenses.
These community concerns intersect with a sharp rise in national power demand. According to the Energy Information Administration, U.S. electricity consumption grew by approximately 1.7 percent annually between 2020 and 2025, reversing a period of stagnation over the prior fifteen years. The agency explicitly credited data centers with driving this acceleration.
Frustrated constituents are prompting swift policy reactions with direct implications for OpenAI and other major developers. As of July, local governments across 38 states had proposed more than 120 moratoria on data center development.
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott directed state regulators to rigorously review applications from data centers seeking grid interconnection before approving any new projects. ERCOT, which oversees most of the state’s power grid, was processing roughly 474 gigawatts of new connection requests—more than five times the state’s historical peak demand. This bottleneck carries particular weight for OpenAI, given that Texas anchors the Stargate initiative with its Abilene flagship and several additional pending developments.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro took decisive action on August 18, signing an executive order that imposes stringent energy-affordability, environmental, and community standards on data center operators. The order also strips artificial intelligence data centers from the state’s expedited permitting pathway.
The backlash is increasingly bridging partisan divides ahead of the midterm elections. While President Donald Trump publicly champions data center development, broad voter opposition persists. A Fox News poll indicates that 60 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of self-identified MAGA supporters oppose local data center construction, underscoring a nationwide consensus that challenges the industry’s growth trajectory.