Austin Campbell, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argued that public backlash against data center construction is driven by broader economic frustration rather than factual concerns about AI infrastructure. Speaking on the growing "data center angst," Campbell noted that visible wealth accumulation among tech leaders like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jensen Huang has become a proxy for anger over inflation and financial strain experienced by average citizens. "The facts kind of don't matter. It's anger about the entire social condition," Campbell stated, suggesting that opposition to data centers reflects deeper societal discontent with economic inequality rather than specific technical or environmental issues associated with AI expansion.