Kevin O’Leary sued over China claims in Utah data center fight
A Utah opposition group says the “Shark Tank” investor defamed critics of his planned data center during Fox News appearances.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
Kevin O’Leary’s Utah data center battle has moved from cable news to federal court.
The “Shark Tank” investor is being sued for defamation after claiming on Fox News that some people opposing his planned data center project had ties to China, according to The Hill.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Utah federal district court by Alliance for a Better Utah, Elevate Strategies, Gabrielle Finlayson and Josh Kanter, The Hill reported. Fox News is also named as a defendant.
The plaintiffs say O’Leary’s remarks damaged them after he appeared on Fox News to discuss the fight over the proposed Utah project. The suit alleges that Kanter and Finlayson “suffered devastating reputational harm, significant economic losses, severe emotional distress, and ongoing threats to their physical safety” after the TV investor made the claims on air.
What the lawsuit says
According to the complaint, the plaintiffs accuse O’Leary of mounting a public attack against project opponents and accuse Fox News of giving him repeated airtime.
The suit says Fox was “instrumental” in what it calls O’Leary’s defamatory campaign, alleging the network put him on air to discuss the plaintiffs five times in three weeks.
“Despite O’Leary’s inherently unreliable claims, and his clear lack of support for them, Fox repeatedly invited O’Leary onto its programs and allowed him to broadcast his false accusations to millions of viewers without any qualification,” the lawsuit says, according to The Hill.
The case centers on comments O’Leary made about the opposition to his Utah data center plan. The plaintiffs say his statements falsely linked critics of the project to China or the Chinese Communist Party.
Fox and O’Leary walked it back
Fox News issued an apology in late June over O’Leary’s comments, according to The Hill.
In that statement, Fox said O’Leary appeared as a guest on May 24 and discussed the controversy around his planned Utah data center. The network said he made claims about opponents of the project, but had since corrected the record and said he had “no evidence” that Alliance for a Better Utah, Josh Kanter or Taylor Knuth were funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party.
O’Leary also posted his own clarification on social media, naming several people and groups involved in the dispute.
“Recently I appeared on various news programs and would like to clarify that I have no evidence that Alliance for a Better Utah, Elevate Strategies, Gabrielle Finlayson, Taylor Knuth or Josh Kanter are funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party,” O’Leary wrote.
The lawsuit asks a federal court in Utah to handle the dispute over whether those public claims were defamatory. No additional response from Fox News or O’Leary was reported by The Hill in connection with the new filing.
This story draws on original reporting from Variety.