After data center investments revealed, Rogers backs statewide moratorium

Filed 5d ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk

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Hidden Agenda

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: The White House from Washington, DC · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers holds between $1.7 million and $2.6 million in tech investments positioned to benefit from AI-friendly permitting policies he has publicly championed, according to a Lever analysis of his financial disclosures, including a stake in a Blackstone trust now 29 percent invested in data centers, up from 1 percent in 2020.

Rogers also serves as a board advisor to venture capital firm Forgepoint, invested in dozens of AI companies, and has raised roughly $148,000 from donors with AI and data center holdings, including Blackstone executives and the Winklevoss twins. Six Forgepoint-backed companies received over $6.1 million in federal contracts while Rogers advised the firm.

Days after the story published, Rogers reversed himself and backed a statewide moratorium on new data center construction — a pivot his campaign has not explained in terms of what happens to his existing portfolio.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

The conversion is remarkable: a man discovers the moral case against data centers within days of a reporter discovering his portfolio, which is either a spiritual awakening or the fastest legislative reflex in the state. What the campaign has conspicuously not announced is whether the conscience extends to the holdings themselves, which suggests the principle is real but the deadline for acting on it is flexible. Any policy position that arrives this promptly after publication should be read less as conviction than as damage control with a press release attached.

Source: Read the original at Michigan Advance → Scored: Hidden Agenda · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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