Data center fights have escalated from zoning disputes into death threats and, in one case, actual gunfire.
In Marshall, Michigan, the city council passed a one-year moratorium on new data center builds on August 3. On August 12, police told council members they were the target of a credible death threat, and the investigation is still open. In Salix, Iowa, a 300-person town that annexed 900 acres for a site Google is evaluating, threats tied to Facebook posts pushed officials to postpone a moratorium vote; the council later met under police presence and voted 3-2 against it. In Box Elder County, Utah, a commissioner said he now has police stationed outside his house after the county approved a project, and on August 21 NBC News reported that officials nationwide are receiving death threats regardless of which way they vote.
This is not just online noise. An Indianapolis councilman had 13 rounds fired into his home in April after backing a rezoning, and a Michigan township treasurer resigned in May over threats tied to a 1.4 gigawatt Oracle and OpenAI campus. Researchers at the Soufan Center found threat language surging since April 2026 with no sign of slowing, and towns including Emporia, Kansas, have already moved meetings online and cut public comment in response.
More than 500 towns have now restricted data center construction, so the industry that promised to quietly reshape the internet's backbone is instead reshaping small-town council meetings into security incidents.