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The public sours on AI and data centers as Anthropic, OpenAI look to IPO and tech keeps spending

Cnbc · · 602 words · By Kate Rooney; Drew Troast
Economic Impact on Tech Companies Public Sentiment and AI Infrastructure and Environmental Opposition
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Artificial intelligence is losing the popularity contest in the United States, and that's bad news for some of Big Tech's power players.

Claims checked 12
Techniques found 1
Topics 3

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center75%
Right25%

4 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Artificial intelligence is losing the popularity contest in the United States, and that's bad news for some of Big Tech's power players.

Why it matters

The trend has implications for richly valued companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, which are both on the path to go public.

Common ground

It also threatens Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta, the so-called hyperscalers planning to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to compete for data centers to power AI.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/public-opinion-ai-data-centers-anthropic-openai-…

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 1 propaganda technique in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning
Loaded Language 80% confidence
Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 12 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 6
help Insufficient Evidence 2
schedule Pending 2
verified Verified By Reference 1
info Single Source 1
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Claim 1: “The San Francisco District Attorney said the crime was motivated by hate of AI technology.”
CORROBORATED
CBC News and other reports indicate that authorities and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins linked the attack to a hatred of AI technology.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2003 San Francisco District Attorney election was held on November 4, 2003, to elect the next District Attorney of San Francisco. The election, which was held alongside the 2003 mayoral election i…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_San_Francisco_District_At…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2024 San Francisco District Attorney election was held on November 5, 2024, concurrent with the election for San Francisco mayor and the 2024 statewide general elections. Incumbent District Attorn…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_San_Francisco_District_At…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The San Francisco District Attorney's Office is the legal agency charged with prosecuting crimes in the City and County of San Francisco, California, under California state law. The current district …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_District_Attorne…
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 2: “Those results echoed in a Pew poll that found a majority of Americans are more concerned than excited about increased use of AI.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources, including the Pew Research Center itself, confirm that Americans are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI.
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web search NEUTRAL — A new Pew Research poll indicates that Americans are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life, with 53% fearing it will worsen people’s ability to think creativ…
https://www.kron4.com/news/technology-ai/pew-research-ai-pol…
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web search NEUTRAL — Americans are much more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life, with a majority saying they want more control over how AI is used in their lives. Far larger shares say AI w…
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/09/17/how-americans…
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web search NEUTRAL — They're far "more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life."A new Pew Research Center poll has found that Americans are getting incredibly fed up with artificial intelligence…
https://futurism.com/new-poll-americans-loathe-ai
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Claim 3: “He is also accused of threatening to burn down OpenAI's headquarters.”
CORROBORATED
Reports from multiple sources state that Moreno-Gama went to OpenAI's headquarters and threatened to burn down the building.
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web search NEUTRAL — A man accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI's CEO is charged with attempted murder.Less than an hour later, Mr Moreno-Gama allegedly went to OpenAI's headquarters about 4.8 kilo…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-14/man-accused-of-attack…
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web search NEUTRAL — Before his arrest at OpenAI's headquarters, Daniel Moreno-Gama lived in a quiet Houston suburb, worked at a pizzeria, and went to community college.The digital trail of the 20-year-old accused of targ…
https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-molotov-attack-su…
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web search NEUTRAL — Sam Altman’s home attack suspect slapped with attempted murder & other charges. A 20-year-old man was arrested for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's home. He is also believed to ha…
https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/who-is-d…
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Claim 4: “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was targeted at his San Francisco home last week, where prosecutors say a man threw a lit Molotov cocktail at his driveway gate.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple independent news sources (The Guardian, NPR, and others) confirm that a man threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's San Francisco home driveway gate.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The year 2026 in California involved the following events.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_in_California
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Satchel Ronan O'Sullivan Farrow (born December 19, 1987) is an American journalist and lawyer. He is known for his investigative reporting on sexual abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Wein…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Farrow
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Samuel Harris Altman (born April 22, 1985) is an American entrepreneur who has been the chief executive officer (CEO) of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI since 2019. Altman attended Stanford…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 5: “A report from Data Center Watch found that in 2025, at least $156 billion in data center projects were blocked or delayed amid local opposition and litigation.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found in the search results to support the claim regarding a Data Center Watch report for 2025.
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Claim 6: “The suspect, 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama of Texas, faces charges including attempted murder.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources (AOL/AP, and other news reports) identify the suspect as 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama from Texas and confirm he faces attempted murder charges.
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web search NEUTRAL — The 20-year-old Texas man accused of firebombing the San Francisco mansion of Sam Altman , a tech guru behind ChatGPT, will have his arraignment delayed and held without bond, according to the Associa…
https://www.aol.com/articles/man-charged-attempted-murder-al…
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web search NEUTRAL — Daniel Moreno-Gama, a 20-year-old from Texas, is accused of throwing an incendiary device at Altman’s home on Friday night, before going on to strike at the glass doors of OpenAI’s San Francisco headq…
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/13/tech/sam-altman-openai-arrest…
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web search NEUTRAL — Daniel Moreno-Gama is scheduled to hear those charges at an arraignment on Tuesday afternoon.The 20-year-old is also facing federal felony charges that include possession of an unregistered firearm an…
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq597n1pg6lo
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Claim 7: “On Wednesday, Maine passed a bill to create the first state-wide data center ban”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was found in the search results to support the claim that Maine passed a state-wide data center ban.
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Claim 8: “A March NBC News survey found 57% of registered voters believe the risks of AI outweigh the benefits”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results explicitly cite an NBC News survey finding that 57% of registered voters believe AI risks outweigh the benefits.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Anthropic is an American artificial intelligence (AI) company headquartered in San Francisco. It has developed a range of large language models (LLMs) named Claude and focuses on AI safety. Anthropic …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is a subfield of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses generative models to generate text, images, videos, audio, software code (vibe coding) or other forms…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_AI
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — NewsBreak is a local news aggregation platform founded in 2015. It provides a mobile app and website to deliver geographically specific news to users. The app was criticized by Reuters and NBC News fo…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewsBreak
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 9: “a Quinnipiac University poll reported that 55% expect AI would do more harm than good in their daily lives.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
While web search results mention a Quinnipiac University AI survey and a Gallup poll, none of the provided evidence snippets explicitly confirm the specific figure of 55% expecting AI to do more harm than good in daily lives.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2025–2026 Iranian protests were a series of nationwide demonstrations against the government of Iran that began on 28 December 2025 amid a deepening economic crisis. The unrest followed a sharp de…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025–2026_Iranian_protests
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2026 United States elections are scheduled to be held, in large part, on November 3, 2026. In these midterm elections, scheduled to occur during Republican president Donald Trump's nonconsecutive …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_elections
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of notable polling organizations by country. All the major television networks, alone or in conjunction with the largest newspapers or magazines, in virtually every country with electio…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_polling_organizations
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 10: “Voters in the St. Louis suburb of Lester, Missouri, voted out several city council members over support for a proposed data center.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
schedule
Claim 11: “The startup is among the companies planning to reserve a portion of its IPO for individual investors, according to CFO Sarah Friar.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
info
Claim 12: “the tech megacaps have committed roughly $700 billion this year to build them out across the U.S.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The figure of $700 billion is mentioned in one specific web search result regarding Meta's data center, but it is not corroborated by multiple independent sources in the provided evidence.
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web search NEUTRAL — Data centers—the computing infrastructure required to power the country’s AI, on which companies are shelling out nearly $700 billion to build this year alone—are quickly popping up in rural and subur…
https://fortune.com/2026/05/14/meta-data-center-tax-break-hy…
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web search NEUTRAL — As tech companies race to build new data centers across the country, Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to pump the brakes. Sanders announced on Wednesday that he is introducing a bill in the Senate that would…
https://gizmodo.com/bernie-sanders-introduces-bill-to-pause-…
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web search NEUTRAL — The explosion of AI across every industry has seen hundreds of water- and power-hungry server farms sprout up across the US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8TDOFqkQA
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.