Meta Sees a Harder Path for New Data Centers After Elections

Meta Platforms (META ) expects post-election opposition to data centers to make new U.S. projects harder to build, President and Vice Chairman Dina Powell McCormick said in a WSJ Events interview on November 4, 2026, even as the company’s recent equity and debt offerings were oversubscribed.

Powell McCormick said data centers appeared in many campaign advertisements and numerous candidates ran on the issue, and that she expects more project review and greater attention to whether local residents want the facilities. Her conclusion was simple: “I think it’s going to be harder.” An unnamed governor-elect who campaigned on data centers has already requested a meeting after inauguration because the state does not want to lose Meta’s investment or see the associated jobs go elsewhere.

Powell McCormick said starting a new U.S. data center is very challenging, while expanding an existing site can draw on a multiyear operating record that demonstrates local benefits. Hyperscalers are also considering whether to build outside the United States. That makes an established campus more than an operating asset: its local track record can become part of the case for additional capacity.

Community Support Shapes Project Development

Powell McCormick said Meta has built data centers for 20 years and operates across 23 states, with five states expected to have projects of one gigawatt or more, including Texas. The developments are 20-year, multibillion-dollar commitments, and power, land and community engagement are central site-selection criteria.

She pointed to Richland Parish, Louisiana, a community of 20,000 people that welcomed Meta’s investment, as the model for its community compact. The approach includes Meta paying for its own electricity, using a larger tax base to benefit teachers and first responders, training and retaining a local labor force, and maintaining bipartisan and citizen support. In the Louisiana parish, tax surpluses fund teacher bonuses.

America’s Workforce Academy adds a labor pipeline by paying people to train as welders, fiber technicians and electricians and guaranteeing them a job on a Meta infrastructure site. The program links the company’s construction requirements to the local employment benefits it uses to make the case for investment.

Capital Raising Supports the Build-Out

Meta’s compute division works with its finance chief across capital formation, power and energy, workforce development and community engagement. That structure treats infrastructure as a company-wide financing and operating task rather than only a construction program.

The equity offering had just closed, while the European bond offering closed on the day of the interview despite 18 other bond deals being in the market. The operating case Powell McCormick presented to capital providers cited 3.6 billion daily users across Meta’s products, 200 million small-business owners and six consecutive quarters of double-digit growth in the core business.

Leasing Adds a Monetization Route

Powell McCormick called compute an asset and described a monetization case with two sources of demand. Meta receives calls every day from parties seeking to lease the capacity it has built, while its own product needs include Muse, which Meta hopes will attract billions of users after reaching 10 million users. Small-business uses are another potential opportunity.

Investor demand for the offerings and the leasing inquiries address different sides of the expansion: how to fund computing capacity and how it might generate revenue. Neither removes the local constraint on where new capacity can be built. Established campuses and communities where Meta can demonstrate tangible benefits therefore become more important to the next stage of its build-out.