- Jason Chaffetz, a former Utah congressman and potential gubernatorial candidate, said he helped start a proposed data center project in Box Elder County.
- Chaffetz facilitated connections for the project, which faces strong public opposition.
- Chaffetz said data centers are important for national security and technological advancement.
SALT LAKE CITY — A former Utah congressman who's weighing a 2028 run for governor stands to benefit financially depending on the outcome of a proposed artificial intelligence data center in Box Elder County.
Jason Chaffetz, a Fox News contributor who represented Utah in Congress from 2009 until his resignation in 2017, said he helped connect celebrity businessman Kevin O'Leary with people in Utah to get the project off the ground.
The Stratos data center, which would be built across 40,000 acres of undeveloped land in Box Elder County, has attracted strong public opposition. But Chaffetz supports the project, which he believes will be a "huge net positive" for the state of Utah in terms of economic impact and national defense.
"My role was to simply match people that were putting the project together here in Utah with Kevin O'Leary," Chaffetz told KSL Friday. He said he has known the businessman for several years and has "tried sharing other projects with him, but this one he was interested in."
Chaffetz said he has a consulting company but couldn't provide more details about his financial involvement in the project due to confidentiality agreements.
"I get compensated for consulting," he said. "So, we'll see where the project ends up, and that will be a determining factor."
Chaffetz said he is not involved in the Stratos project going forward and that his role was that of a matchmaker.
The public opposition to the data center has quickly become a national story. In response to pushback, Gov. Spencer Cox has significantly softened his public support for it and issued an executive order on Friday to guide the development of data centers in the state.
Chaffetz told KSL he knows some Utahns have "legitimate questions and concerns" about the data center, but noted that it's not the only proposal in Utah. He said he thinks data centers play an important role in protecting national security and advancing future technology.
"Everybody's using them, so it's naive to think that we can just stop data centers and life will be the same," he said. "If you use a phone, if you drive a car, if you watch Netflix, if you do pretty much anything in society these days, you're tapping in and using a data center."
Chaffetz added that he wants to "be a good steward of our environment" and believes there's a responsible way to build out storage capacity.
As all this plays out, Chaffetz has been working behind the scenes to line up a bid for governor once Cox's second term ends, the Deseret News reported. Cox has previously said he won't run for reelection.
But Chaffetz is not the only possible GOP candidate. Others include Sen. John Curtis, House Speaker Mike Schultz, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, Rep. Blake Moore, Traeger Grills CEO Jeremy Andrus, and entrepreneur Brad Bonham.
