Overview
- A federal defamation complaint was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Utah by Alliance for a Better Utah, Elevate Strategies, Gabrielle Finlayson and Josh Kanter against Kevin O'Leary and Fox News.
- Plaintiffs say O'Leary repeatedly told national audiences in May that some opponents of his planned 40,000-acre Stratos data center had ties to China and at one point called them 'proxies for the Chinese Government.'
- The complaint says Finlayson and Kanter suffered severe reputational harm, economic losses, emotional distress and ongoing threats to their physical safety after the broadcasts.
- Fox News says it publicly corrected the record and apologized on programs that aired O'Leary's remarks and it will vigorously defend itself, and O'Leary has posted that he has 'no evidence' for the funding claims.
- If the case proceeds to discovery it could force internal review of network bookings and vetting, shape how courts treat on-air corrections as a defense, and add pressure to the wider local fight over the Utah data-center project.