'Lombardo's taxpayer-funded data centers'

Happy Saturday. After the Current published the story by Jeniffer Solis yesterday on the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada hoping to bury its collective head in the sand on data centers, Aaron Ford issued a statement reacting to the story in which Ford used the phrase “Lombardo’s taxpayer-funded data centers.” 

Used by any number of other Democrats — Rep. Dina Titus, for instance — or their allied organizations, the slam against the governor might not be noteworthy. But in Ford’s case, it is, because asked more than once this summer by the Current’s senior reporter Dana Gentry about if and why the state should be bestowing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to data centers, Ford has punted, most recently deflecting the question by saying “I will continue to look at this.”

Ford’s data center dance has been doubly notable because as a state senator, he was one of the primary sponsors of the 2015 legislation that created state tax breaks specifically for data centers in the first place. (A reminder in the interest of fairness: In 2015, Anthropic and Open AI weren’t household words.) 

Ford, like the vast majority of Nevada politicians in both parties, has long been a champion of government assistance to private industries in the name of economic development. Last year both Ford and Lombardo backed giving public subsidies to California film corporations, including one now owned by the Trump-worshiping billionaires Larry and David Ellison, whose Oracle firm has been a substantial player in the AI-driven data center infestation.

While that massive expansion of the film tax credit, which would have been the largest public subsidy of private industry in the state’s history, did not pass, Nevada still has an older and smaller program that gives tax breaks to the film and video industries. 

That program was spearheaded by Ford in 2013.

Ford’s opponent in the Democratic primary, Alexis Hill, campaigned against government giveaways generally and data centers specifically. But Hill was overwhelmingly outspent by Ford, and her campaign didn’t get traction.

Now Ford is being overwhelmingly outspent by Lombardo.

As of the last campaign finance filing, Benjamin Horowitz, who along with his tech venture capital partner Mark Andreesen has contributed at least $75 million to the nation’s largest AI industry political action committee, has also contributed at least $1 million to the main PAC supporting Lombardo.

Lombardo also may be one of the most shameless data center apologists with their name on a U.S. ballot this year.

Meanwhile, fear and loathing of AI and its data centers has only intensified in Nevada and the nation over the summer.

(In what seems a not unrelated note, Lombardo spent most of his first month as governor in 2023 publicly bowing and scraping before the global poster child of detested tech bros, Elon Musk, and over the last year or so Lombardo has found himself rationalizing, explaining away, and defending the atrocious working conditions in scofflaw Musk’s preposterous Las Vegas tunnels.)

Ford’s reference to “Lombardo’s taxpayer-funded data centers” signal his position on data centers may be evolving. Or maturing.

To which a lot of Ford backers would say: It’s about time.

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Here are your ICYMI stories we published in the Curret this week we wouldn't want you to miss.

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Dana — Nevada problem gambling group cuts ties with national organization over Kalshi deal

April & Leilah — CCSD boosts internal ‘school choice’ option with novel perk: $1,000 to drive your kids to school

April — Majority of Nevadans support tobacco tax hike, survey says

Leilah —Trump’s mass deportations cost average NV taxpayer $2,421, report finds

Michael — NV lawmakers mull maternal health protections for ’27 session, punt on child welfare funding fix

Paulette Stauffer Henriod column — Outdoor recreation on public lands is a Nevada economic powerhouse

Good luck