Data center companies are breaking promises and shaking down Appalachia
The growing backlash to data centers continues, and a strange twist with one of the largest companies comes to our front doorstep in Tennessee
If your community hasn’t yet been approached by a data center developer, or isn’t currently experiencing the “benefit” of having one already, then congratulations — you are one of the lucky ones.
Data centers have exploded in development over the past year, much to the dismay of almost every single person in this country who isn’t a local politician or heavily invested in the AI bubble.
The data center revolt grows nationwide
Now, I don’t like to pat myself on the back too much, but I said back on December 16th, 2025, at approximately 9:46 pm ET, that “Anti-data center” is a winning policy in 2026 and beyond for anyone who wants to take it. That has proven to be true
If you look at recent polling, it is abundantly clear where average americans stand. A recent poll from May shows a resounding 71% of Americans oppose data centers being built in their area, with only 21% supporting them. This largely tracks with a Gallup poll commissioned two months earlier.
A more tangible metric illustrating this is the amount of cancelled data center projects. Data center project cancellations quadrupled in 2025 alone, as community opposition has continued to grow and mobilize.
The reason for this is multifaceted, but one is the relative lack of benefits a community receives from data centers compared to the amount of potential harm they can cause. While I won’t go into detail about all the downsides, it is worth noting that many data center projects get GENEROUS incentives from local and state governments to build them.
Why? Well, dear reader, I can’t answer that question definitively, but I can provide you with a little story that might leave you with a potential answer.
The curious case of Oracle in Tennessee
Wealthy corporations exploiting the resources of Appalachia and of the broader American South is nothing new. In fact, one might argue its a tale as old as time.1 It also may be what is happening in Tennessee right now.
That sweet, sweet taxpayer cash
Oracle is a massive company that produces enterprise cloud services and AI products, among other things.23 Oracle and Tennessee have recently become strange and troubling bedfellows.
Oracle recently announced they’d be moving their world headquarters from Austin to Nashville (gross)4. They received an extremely generous $65 million fast track grant, significant property tax abatements, and other incentives from the state of Tennessee back in 2021. In exchange for these incentives, Oracle promised to create 5,989 jobs.
Do you want to take a guess at how many jobs they’ve created in the five years since that fat, juicy stack of cash was dropped off on Larry Ellison’s doorstep?
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For those of you that guessed “none of them”, I deeply admire your cynicism — genuinely, I do.
The correct number, as of April 16, 2026, is 639 — or 10.834181078331637% of the jobs they promised in the five years since they inked the incentives deals. At this rate, it will take Oracle over 45 years to fulfill their jobs promise.
And it should be noted, this was BEFORE Oracle fired 30,000 workers via email. The jury is still out on whether any of the 639 were included in those firings.
So you may be thinking, “damn, big dog, this sounds bad. But why did you start this post out ranting about data centers?” Patience, dear reader. We can’t land the plane if the gear is still retracted.
Oracle eyes southeast Tennessee for a trio of “modular” data centers…
At the same time Oracle is acting as the grim reaper of gainful employment, they are heavily investing in AI data infrastructure with a goal of building and installing 1,000 modular data centers across the country. Three of those modular data centers just so happen to be in Chattanooga.
…and may likely get huge tax breaks
Importantly, if data centers can manage to convince the state that they created 15 full-time jobs,5 the state will reward them with a sales tax exemption — effectively meaning that I will pay more taxes on my groceries than data centers will pay on things like computers, software, power infrastructure, and many other things that would otherwise generate boatloads of revenue for the state and locality.
Detour: a quick financial rabbithole via Palantir
It would be malpractice not to at least mention the connection that Palantir has to Oracle. Palantir is billed as a “data integration and analytics software developer” company, but one thing it does is suck up unfathomable amounts of data that has been collected and identifies patterns. This example helps illustrate what they do:
For example, it might find the location of someone who overstayed their visa for ICE. Immigration enforcement uses Palantir to centralize data, which can include our known addresses, phone numbers, driving records, credit history, immigration history, health data, and social media presence all in one place. Palantir’s tools have fueled some of the largest raids on immigrant communities in ICE’s history.
Oracle works very closely with Palantir. So close, in fact, that they have an entire page of their website dedicated to their strategic partnership with Palantir, and vice-versa. The community of gross freaks that monitor Palantir stock on Reddit have been cheering on the partnership for a while now, applauding it as a boon for their investment portfolios. They are both involved in the disgusting, inhumane business of ICE kidnapping raids that have terrorized people throughout this country — working hand-in-hand together and expanding the surveillance state along the way.
So yeah, I’m not a fan of either business I guess you could say, and I most certainly do not want them getting generous tax breaks while I still have to pay a combined 9.25% state and local sales tax.
Lastly on this point, it is worth noting that the county mayor of Hamilton County, TN (where Chattanooga is located) — Weston Wamp — has disclosed investments in Palantir according to the Tennessee Ethics Commission.6
Surveillance centers at the Nashville Zoo and at an HBCU
First off, I wanted to mention the whole “Nashville Zoo data center” issue and controversy, because I would regret not doing so. That being said, I won’t dive into all the dirty details of how things went down and the intricacies of the shadiness in the situation. Its too much to cover as a sidebar, but I didn’t want to not mention it.
A data center company called DC BLOX has proposed a 69,218 square foot data center drawing 10 MW of power right next to the Nashville Zoo, with “geotechnical documents filed as part of the same permit describing a much larger project: two buildings totaling 345,000 square feet, 50 megawatts of power, a 72,000 square foot electrical substation, a guard house, parking structures, generator yards, and 12.4 acres of ground disturbance.” (source)
Among the obvious issues with this are how it could impact local wildlife and zoo inhabitants. The noise and light pollution that is feared to come from it could impact animal livelihood at the zoo, endanger already-endangered species in nearby Mill Creek, and be within close proximity to schools and neighborhoods in this populous part of Nashville.
The zoo is strongly opposed to this, as well as the vast majority of the general public as far as I can tell.7 They even brought up THE BIG DOG to throw shade at DC Blox and poo poo the data center.
Fisk University Data Center
Though generating less attention, there has also been significant community pushback to a proposed data center at Fisk University, an HBCU west of downtown Nashville. A key difference with this data center, however, is that the university is on board with it. Fisk claims it will give students “an edge in emerging AI technologies.” While I don’t know a ton about this project, this is a line pushed a lot when it comes to jamming AI infrastructure into communities, so consider me to be extremely skeptical!
Many Fisk alumni are pushing back against the proposal. These quotes from the Nashville Scene sums up the context of this proposal quite well IMO.
“We are standing in a ZIP code that consistently ranks within the top three for the highest rates of asthma prevalence and emergency-department-related visits across the city,” said Winston Wellington Wright, a public health expert who graduated from Fisk in 2017. Wright compared the potential damage of the data center plans to the construction of Interstate 40 in the 1960s, which demolished homes and split North Nashville in half.
“There were no community meetings, no community engagement, and surprisingly these announcements came after the students who are most affected were let out for the summer,” said Karen Johnson, register of deeds for Davidson County.
This is not the first time an AI data center has targeted a Black community in Tennessee for one of its builds. I wrote briefly about the xAI data center in Memphis and all of its issues a few weeks ago.
In closing
What to make of all of this? I’ll tell you this much…its clear that data center developers do not have the social license in any part of the country to build these boxes — in no small part because of the lack of real benefit the communities receive from them. But its also clear that many of them do not give a shit. The permission they need is from the local officials that sign-off on these projects.
While they may have the money and some of the power, we have the people. And the people can win if they organize. This has proven true consistently with the amount of data center cancellations that have taken place. The thing to be very concerned about is how the modular data centers like the ones Oracle is proposing are creeping into our communities. I’ll be monitoring those closely, and I hope you will too.
Cue Beauty and the Beast
I guess, but who the fuck really knows with these shady companies who get generous government contracts nowadays (LOOKING AT YOU, PALANTIR)
I should add that Oracle has a 15% ownership stake in TikTok since it was forced to be sold
Nashville isn’t gross, the concept of Oracle moving their HQ there is. I’m sorry I abuse footnotes.
Worth noting that the state does not require these jobs be local hires