Kevin O'Leary's Biggest Scam Yet

TL;DR

Kevin O'Leary's proposed 7.5-gigawatt Utah AI data center is likely vaporware, following a pattern of grand announcements he never delivers on.

Key Points

• 1.O'Leary's business credibility is built on sand. He rose to fame selling The Learning Company to Mattel for $3.5B in 1999 — a deal later revealed as fraudulent; Mattel paid a $122M shareholder settlement and shut the company down within a year.
• 2.His crypto pivot was purely opportunistic. After calling Bitcoin a 'scam' in 2019, O'Leary accepted $15M to promote FTX in 2021 — which collapsed as a near-total fraud — and pumped WonderFi stock, which fell 90% from its $2.50 peak to a 36-cent acquisition offer.
• 3.The $14B oil refinery announcement was pure vaporware. In April 2023, O'Leary declared on Fox News he'd build a U.S. oil refinery — a project requiring $14B he didn't have — and it was never built or mentioned again.
• 4.The Alberta 'Wonder Valley' data center has gone nowhere. Announced in December 2024 with a $70B price tag, by December 2025 O'Leary had purchased no land, filed no permits, and not consulted indigenous communities — despite promising to raise $2B by June 2025.
• 5.The Utah data center is built on false national security framing. O'Leary claims the U.S. must catch up to China in AI infrastructure, but Goldman Sachs data shows the U.S. is spending $527B vs. China's $70B; the MIDA designation he touts is a state tax-break authority with zero military connection.
• 6.No money has actually been raised for either project. O'Leary Digital has only hired unnamed investment banks as brokers and used O'Leary's personal funds for setup costs; no investors have committed capital, and a county vote on the Utah site was delayed after local residents protested over water scarcity concerns.