Buffalo, NY – On August 22, local activists and community leaders held a rally outside of Tesla Buffalo, where Elon Musk has expressed interest in building the “Dojo supercomputer” to support Tesla’s automated vehicle technology. Local activists led the fight, highlighting overwhelming resistance to unfettered data center development and calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign a strong data center moratorium bill, the Responsible Data Center Development Act. The event is part of the statewide ‘Stop Data Centers’ tour being led by bill sponsor State Senator Gonzalez and the environmental group Food & Water Watch.

The rally featured a panel of Niagara Falls and Niagara County residents talking about their site fights, with an open audience Q&A. They were joined by members of the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York, PUSH Buffalo, Buffalo DSA, and Food & Water Watch.

The rally was followed by a Buffalo Town Hall at Trinity Church, and the tour at 1pm, which included stops in Buffalo, the Town of Tonawanda, North Tonawanda, and Niagara Falls. 

The event is one of 12 sites with hyperscale data centers or pending proposals being highlighted on the ‘Stop Data Centers’ tour happening throughout the month. Today, there are over 30 large data center proposals pending in New York State; if these data centers were to come online, they would need more than 11,900 MW of new electricity demand—nearly double the energy demand of all of New York households.

“Who is profiting from data centers and supercomputers? In the case of Tesla and X AI, the profit flows to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and one of the most destructive. Experts on racism and anti-semitism have noted that Musk has been amping up his support for white supremacy over the last year. Here in Buffalo, we are all too aware of the damage this kind of hateful ideology does,” said Sam Magavern a Senior Policy Fellow at Partnership for the Public Good.

“Hyperscale data centers are invasive and resource extraction monsters that make too much noise, raise our utility bills and consume and contaminate our water. Water is life,” said Eve Wackett, Clean Air Coalition member and NYS Certified Wildlife Rehabber. 

“Considering the well-being of our Mother Earth and all that draw life from her sacred gifts must be at the core of all deliberations related to having highly extractive and harmful hyperscale data server warehouses in our communities. We must consider the impact on the coming 7 generations, as we’ve been instructed. The empty promises (and impactful threats) are mind changers, no less distorting our thinking than alcohol/drugs, anger, jealousy, and wanting power over others (rather than sharing power, uplifting and empowering each other),” said Valerie Statts, Clean Air Coalition member, Mohawk Turtle Clan woman, a retired NYS and national addiction professional and trainer

“Data centers are the latest technological mirage. They pretend to offer an amazing future where robots and machines do the grunt work while we all profit and relax, but really they’re energy sucking vampires that pollute, evaporate water and hum 24/7, while stealing our creativity and jobs, and handing the rich even more money.” said Ted Kusio, Clean Air member who recently participated in Governor Hochul’s Tonawanda roundtable.

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