Nationwide opposition to AI data center projects has escalated to threats and violence against local officials, prompting over 500 towns to restrict new builds.
Officials across the United States are facing escalating threats and violence over artificial intelligence data center projects, prompting more than 500 municipalities to implement construction restrictions while local councils increasingly shutter public comment periods. Monitoring indicates that these threats have remained elevated since April. In Marshall, Michigan, city council members passed a one-year moratorium on new builds on August 3. Ten days later, police informed them of a credible death threat tied to the project. Marshall Mayor Scott Wolfersberger told local station WWMT that the police department contacted him on August 12 regarding the threat, noting that the investigation remains ongoing. Councilor James Hackworth later posted that members had received “a legitimate death threat,” emphasizing that disagreement, protest, and voting officials out are all part of democracy. The sender’s position on data centers remains unclear, and no suspect has been identified.
Meanwhile, the 300-person town of Salix, Iowa, postponed its own moratorium vote after social media posts placed its government “in the crosshairs.” Mayor Kevin Nelson stated that the Woodbury County Sheriff’s Office is investigating posts that called for “various death and terroristic type things” against the entire city administration. Nelson noted that threats first emerged in May, following the town’s April annexation of 900 acres of farmland for a site under evaluation by Google. Woodbury County is separately challenging the annexation in court. At a council meeting held a week late on August 20, officials voted 3-2 against the moratorium. As members of the public and councilman Gene Monk objected, Nelson called officers into the chamber. Monk argued, “We ask for a cool-down period for a year to research, then we can make an educated decision. We can let the people vote for it after that — do something different. It's too big of a decision for us five people [council members].”
In Box Elder County, Utah, Commissioner Lee Perry reported that he and fellow commissioners Boyd Bingham and Tyler Vincent received threats after approving two resolutions for the Stratos project area. Approximately 500 attendees chanted “shame” during the meeting. Perry told KSL that he now has police stationed outside his home. On August 21, NBC News reported that municipal leaders nationwide are receiving death threats over data centers regardless of how they vote on the projects.
Recent history demonstrates that these warnings are frequently followed by violence. In April, Indianapolis City Councilman Ron Gibson had 13 rounds fired into his home after supporting a rezoning proposal. In May, Saline Township, Michigan, Treasurer Jennifer Zink resigned, citing threats related to a planned 1.4-gigawatt Oracle and OpenAI campus that sparked moratoriums in at least 19 Michigan municipalities. Similarly, Emporia, Kansas, moved its August 5 and August 19 commission meetings online and eliminated public comment after its leaders were threatened. To date, 142 protests have been staged across 42 states as public opposition intensifies.
Digital monitoring corroborates the physical escalation. Data published in the Soufan Center’s July IntelBrief, derived from a year-long scrape of X and Reddit, documented hundreds of posts containing threat language between July 2025 and July 2026. The dataset shows a volume surge beginning in April that has yet to subside. While most violent threats in the dataset target infrastructure rather than individuals, posts explicitly naming council members and planning commissions constitute a small minority. Perpetrators frequently employ memes, emojis, and deliberate misspellings to evade content moderation. The center also found that each new incident now generates significantly greater secondary amplification than earlier in the year. The mayor of Emporia noted that the threats directed at his commission did not appear to originate locally. Consequently, Marshall, Salix, and Emporia have all canceled, relocated, or restricted public meetings due to safety concerns, coinciding with the nationwide tally of over 500 local restrictions on data center development.