Aug 21, 2026
New York Times Reports Voters Are Removing Officials Who Approved Nebius Tax Breaks
The New York Times has joined the national outlets covering what happens when a community gets a Nebius AI factory its citizens did not ask for.
Reporter David McCabe traveled to Independence, Missouri, a city of 121,000 outside Kansas City, where Nebius is building a 2.25-million-square-foot data center complex. It is the same Amsterdam-based company now constructing the AI Mega Factory in the middle of the Oxmoor Valley neighborhood.
The story the Times found: on September 1, Independence voters will decide whether to remove Councilman John Perkins from office.
The Times reports it would be one of the first recall elections in the nation motivated by a data center. A judge this month rejected a legal challenge from Perkins and others seeking to stop the vote.
In March, Perkins joined a 5 to 2 council majority awarding Nebius a 90 percent break on personal property taxes and a 98 percent break on real property taxes. The Times says those incentives total $6.26 billion over 20 years.
At the March meeting, Perkins assured a room full of protesting residents that Nebius would use limited water and that the city had protected residents from rising electricity prices.
"The protections are there. I feel very comfortable with this," the newspaper quotes Perkins telling the crowd.
Residents, on the other hand, were not so comfortable.
More than 1,200 of them signed petitions to force the recall. And Perkins is not the first elected official to feel their wrath.
In April's regular elections, the Times reports, two other council members who voted for the tax breaks were turned out. One lost his at-large seat to challengers critical of the project. The other lost her bid for mayor.
The Times reports the anger is not confined to Missouri.
Residents in more than a dozen cities and towns are pursuing recalls of officials who approved data centers, including Festus, Missouri; Mason, Michigan; and Yukon, Oklahoma.
Two members of the Georgia Public Service Commission lost their seats last year amid concern that data centers are driving up electricity prices.
A Virginia state delegate lost after his opponent branded him "Data Center Geary."
The opposition crosses every political line.
The Times quotes both Senator Bernie Sanders and the chairwoman of a conservative group favoring stronger AI regulation, with each saying voters will hold officials accountable for approving projects their communities oppose.
Nebius, for its part, told the newspaper it does not get involved in political races. But the company's vice president of U.S. public affairs, John Sutter, defended the council's action as an investment in the city's future.
The voters of Independence will render their own verdict on September 1.