Mr. Wonderful Discovers Local Utah Cells

Kevin O’Leary went on Fox News, called us Chinese proxies, and demanded a forensic audit.

Hi. Hello. It’s us.

Apparently, we have reached the part of the Stratos data center story where Kevin O’Leary, noted Canadian television billionaire and man who appears to own both a private jet and a life-size cardboard cutout of himself, went on Fox News and accused us of operating as Chinese Communist Party proxies inside Utah.

Normal Monday.

Kevin told Fox News that his “guys” had done a “deep dig into the IP addresses” and found “two cells inside of Utah”: Alliance for a Better Utah and Elevate Strategies. More specifically, Gabi Finlayson.

He said he was doing it to give us a chance to defend ourselves! How kind of you to make an insane and false accusation on national television and then give us a chance to respond from our much smaller platform! How kind!

So, because we are such good subservient women who are happy to take orders from a bald billionaire, here is our response.

An Open Letter to Mr. Wonderful, From the Alleged Utah Cell

Dear Mr. “Wonderful”,

First of all, thank you for the promotion. Truly. We always wondered what it would take to get a billionaire to say our names on national television, and apparently, the answer is: ask basic questions about a data center.

So let’s start with the big one.

You accused Gabi and Elevate of being a “cell” operating inside Utah on behalf of… wait for it… the Chinese government.

A cell.

Our immediate reaction was something along the lines of: hahahahahahahahaha, what the hell are you talking about? Are you good? Did someone check on Kevin? Is there a responsible adult nearby?

But after sitting with it, we have decided to take the compliment.

Rude, yes. Insane, absolutely. But biologically flattering. We have been called a lot of things in Utah politics, but “cell” is genuinely new. And sure, if we’re talking mitochondria, yes, we are a powerhouse of a cell. Thank you for noticing.

He said, “Gabi, what are you doing?”

That does raise an important follow-up question: Kevin. What are you doing?

Because Gabi is mostly making videos, reading public records, writing newsletters, drinking too much Diet Coke, and trying to figure out why a 40,000-acre gas-powered data center that could consume more than double Utah’s current energy usage got shoved through in less than two weeks despite thousands of Utahns raising alarms.

Terrifying stuff. She has Canva Pro, a tripod, and the mouth of a sailor.

Officers, this way! Lock her up.

“Who’s paying you?”

Uhhh, nobody. That is the whole thing.

Sure, our company runs campaigns, and people pay us for campaign expertise. We’re lucky we love what we do, but we all have to have a job. You should know that, considering your job is telling small business owners that their dreams are stupid, defending Trump, and ruining the environments of places you don’t live in. But if we were in the business of making money, we would not be running Democratic campaigns in a red state like Utah. Wouldn’t change it, but it’s not exactly a cash cow – we’d think you would understand that, given, you know, markets and investments and the nightmare that is late stage capitalism and consumerism that gave you all of your money!

However, we do want you to know that when Gabi went to American Fork High School — that’s in Utah, not China, Kevin — she had to take a financial literacy class taught by the high school wrestling coach and terrible member of the Utah State Board of Education, Cole Kelley. In that financial literacy class, essentially the only thing they did was play Monopoly and watch reruns of Shark Tank. So you really only have yourself to blame for this nemesis you’ve created, keeping in mind she was literally in high school while you were already past your prime, whatever that prime once was. Anyway, we digress.

Do our jobs have anything to do with what we post on social media? No. No one pays us to post on social media. No one pays us to publish on Substack. No one is secretly wiring us foreign intelligence money to ask obvious questions about a massive industrial project that could reshape Utah’s land, energy grid, air quality, water future, carbon emissions, and political corruption profile.

Who actually funds this work? Utahns. Small-dollar donors. Paid Substack subscribers. People who care enough about this state to throw us $6 a month so we can keep doing the deeply glamorous work of reading MIDA documents and Utah code until our eyes start twitching.

There is no secret benefactor. There is no shadowy foreign government. There is not even a lot of small-dollar donor money here. There is, however, a truly haunting amount of credit card debt.

If we are Chinese operatives, we are catastrophically bad at it. Someone please tell Beijing the payment portal for our American Express bills appears to be broken.

“Who would want to stop building our electrical grid? There’s only one. China.”

Kevin showed up to make this argument wearing a hat that says “Utah National Security.”

We want to be very clear that this is a real hat that a real adult man wore on purpose on national television while accusing us of espionage. Just out of frame on Fox News was a surprisingly short lifesize cardboard cutout of himself. Because, as the saying goes, behind every terrible man is a shorter cardboard cutout of that same man.

(Alternative versions to this joke because we actually couldn’t decide which one was the funniest:)

• Just out of frame on Fox News was a surprisingly short life-size cardboard cutout of himself, because apparently the only person willing to stand behind Kevin O’Leary… is Kevin O’Leary.

• Just out of frame on Fox News was a surprisingly short life-size cardboard cutout of himself, bravely doing what his evidence could not: stand up.

• Just out of frame on Fox News was a surprisingly short life-size cardboard cutout of himself, presumably waiting for its nightly assignment in the corner chair.

Kevin is very worried about Utah’s security. We are, too, actually. Just a different kind. We are worried about the Great Salt Lake. We are worried about water. We are worried about air quality, carbon emissions, land deals, and what it means for northern Utah when a 40,000-acre gas-powered data center moves in and doubles the state’s energy consumption. We are worried about a public process that kept Utahns in the dark until the powerful people were already positioned.

So, naturally, we had to make our own hat.

It says “Utah Nature Security.” You can pre-order one here. Proceeds support the work that apparently has a billionaire nervous enough to go on Fox News and call us, and Alliance for a Better Utah, Chinese Communist Party assets.

Kevin has his hat. Now we can have ours.

PS - Kevin, we’ll use our billions of Yuan to gift one to you.

“Let’s show the people of Utah you actually care about them.”

Now, hey there. We do not need Kevin O’Leary to teach us how to care about Utah.

For the official record. We were born here. We live here. Our families are here. Our friends are here. Our future is here. We have not, and never have been affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (insane we just wrote that sentence). We sacrificed other jobs, other futures, other opportunities, and our mental well-being at times because we actually give a fuck about this state. We love this state and the people who make it so amazing. We have spent years doing underpaid and unpaid work explaining what is happening in this state because Utahns deserve to know who is making decisions for them, who is profiting, and who gets left holding the bag when the powerful men are done congratulating each other.

You, Kevin, flew in to invest in a data center. But do not come into our state, threaten our land, insult our intelligence, accuse local women of being foreign agents, and then demand we prove we care about Utah.

We have been proving it for years. Without a billionaire’s budget. Without Fox News. Without a life-size cardboard cutout of ourselves, although honestly…….. now we’re considering it.

So yes, Kevin, we are going after the leadership.

You said that like it was a scandal. It is not.

You’re so unoriginal – we’ve heard this from powerful, corrupt men before, and we’re damn proud of it. We are absolutely going after the people who helped push this project through. We are going after the corruption that led to this, and so much more. We are going after the process that kept Utahns in the dark. We are going after the land deals, the political relationships, the money, and the very convenient timing of it all. And we’re going to keep doing it, with this project and many more.

No amount of billionaire tantrum theater on Fox News is going to change that. Because unlike you, we care about this state! We’ve been here before you dropped in to ruin it and we’ll be here long after you lose interest.

There is a saying that you should never accept criticism from someone you don’t respect. We are definitely not accepting the criticism of someone who wears a suit and flip flops on national television and then posts a POV just to call attention to it. Put your dogs away, bro.

So with all due respect, which is none, get the hell out of our state.

So here is our official statement in response:

HAHAHAHA. You cannot be serious. Take your lies, your data center, and your toes back to the cartoon villain lair you came from, Kevin. The only foreign actor here is the Canadian billionaire pretending he cares about Utah more than the people who live here.

And you can quote us on that. Or anything in this Substack.

Come out, come out, Kevin!

We’ll be here.