How Kevin O'Leary Went From Shark Tank to AI Pioneer

To investors, The AI industry is moving at warp speed. Every day there is a new announcement about a company, project, or funding round that is supposed to be bigger, better, and more profitable than the last one. At the tip of the spear is the largest data center project in American history, which happens to count Kevin O’Leary as one of its most famous partners. My wife, Polina Pompliano, recently wrote a long-form profile on Kevin’s rise to fame and riches. She specifically talked to him and his critics about the data center project, including the death threats he receives and his response to the detractors. I have included an excerpt from the profile below. You can read the full article by clicking here . (Photo Credit: Stephen Yang for The Profile) O’Leary can’t remember the first death threat, only that they’ve become a recurring part of his life. They arrive in every form imaginable — handwritten letters, emails, direct messages, and public social media posts. “I mean, it’s fucking nuts,” he says. The latest wave started after O’Leary decided to enter the AI race. While many investors are betting on artificial intelligence software, O’Leary is betting on the infrastructure that underpins it. His proposed Stratos Project would build a massive AI and cloud-computing campus in Box Elder County, Utah — a development supporters see as essential to America’s technological future and critics see as an existential threat to the region’s land, water, and power resources. As the fight intensified, the dispute became increasingly personal. O’Leary accused several prominent critics, including Utah political strategist Gabrielle Finlayson, of acting as proxies for the Chinese government. Weeks later, he publicly acknowledged he had “no evidence” to support the allegation. Finlayson is one of the plaintiffs now suing O’Leary and Fox News for defamation over the allegations. “I spent years building my reputation, my business, and the trust of my community,” Finlayson said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “In just weeks, Kevin O’Leary tore it all down with lies.” In a statement, O’Leary’s attorney Jeffrey Neiman said O’Leary intends to “defend this lawsuit vigorously” and may bring counterclaims. He called the suit a “cash grab,” arguing that the plaintiffs declined O’Leary’s invitation to discuss the project and used his remarks to raise money. “We look forward to discovery and uncovering the facts related to the misinformation campaign against the data center in Utah,” Neiman said. Finlayson has referred to O’Leary as “the Canadian who is trying to ruin Utah.” Speaking on a podcast, she said opposition to the proposed AI data centers had become “so strong and so severe,” adding: “These folks don’t always know what’s going to come for them when they decide to put a giant thing no one wants in the middle of people’s homes.” It’s not the first time O’Leary has landed at the center of a public firestorm. He tells me that he says exactly what he thinks and accepts whatever follows. (Photo Credit: Stephen Yang for The Profile) When cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed in 2022, O’Leary became one of its most visible casualties. FTX had paid him $15 million to serve as a spokesperson, and suddenly he found himself answering questions on national television about one of the largest financial scandals in recent memory. O’Leary remembers seeing the word “fraud” in relation to FTX flash on the screen during a Fox News segment, and he checked his account to find the money was gone. He called FTX co-founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and reportedly asked, “What’s going on with the accounts, Sam?” O’Leary was one of the last people to speak with Bankman-Fried, so he had to testify to Congress about what he knew. “It was the first crisis that I’d ever been through,” he says. “And then I remembered something my mother said: ‘Just tell the truth, and you never have to remember what you said.’” The first few days were brutal. “When shit was flying everywhere and the phone was just ringing, ringing, ringing, I said, ‘Fuck, what a nightmare,’” he says. “Why am I the poster boy for this when there’s 20 other guys that took money?” Many celebrities who promoted FTX distanced themselves after the collapse. But O’Leary doubled down. He was on TV every day defending his prior involvement with the company. When I ask him why he kept going on air, he answers as if stating the obvious: “Because I hadn’t been charged with anything.” The experience, he says, taught him to distinguish the signal from the noise. “The media cycle for the big stories is 48 hours,” he says. “After that, it starts to burn off.” In interviews immediately after FTX failed, he refused to condemn Bankman-Fried. CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin pressed him directly: “Kevin, you are an actor in this drama, and you had a front-row seat to Bankman-Fried up until the very end. What do you think happened? Do you think this was a fraud?” To which Kevin responded that he doesn’t have all the facts yet. Financier Anthony Scaramucci , who was also caught in the fallout from FTX’s collapse, remembers feeling “shell-shocked” by the backlash. O’Leary, he says, remained steadfast. “He defended Sam, and he didn’t care about the public opinion,” Scaramucci says. In a 2022 Senate hearing, O’Leary argued that FTX competitor Binance had intentionally driven FTX out of business while benefiting from what he viewed as lax regulatory oversight that allowed it to dominate the market. I ask whether experiences like FTX and the death threats surrounding the Stratos Project have made O’Leary more cautious about what he says publicly. They have not. “The brand is about being authentic — even though it’s controversial,” O’Leary says. “That’s the brand.” This was an excerpt from Polina Pompliano’s profile of Kevin O’Leary titled Kevin O’Leary Is Happy Playing the Villain . You can read the entire article by clicking here . I promise it will be worth your time. Read Kevin O'Leary Profile Hope everyone has a great day. I will talk to you next time. - Anthony J. Pompliano Founder & CEO, ProCap Financial (Nasdaq: BRR) The Investor Betting BILLIONS on AI Nick Grossman is a General Partner at Union Square Ventures. 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