Nevada Governor Endorsed Data Centers Days After AI Investor Donated $1 Million

Three days after a prominent artificial intelligence investor and his wife donated $1 million to a political action committee boosting Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s reelection campaign, Lombardo publicly endorsed the state’s booming data-center buildout. A week later, the PAC collected another $1 million from the wife of a developer building those facilities in Nevada, according to campaign finance records reviewed by The Lever.

The revelation comes as the driest state in the nation grapples with data centers’ enormous resource demands. Fueled by $340 million in state tax abatements since 2021, Nevada has roughly 70 data centers in operation, under construction, or being planned. But amid new research suggesting the industry’s expansion could triple the state’s energy demands and consume as much water annually as roughly 150,000 households, cities and counties across the Silver State have begun issuing moratoriums on new data centers.

The matter could become a pivotal election issue. Lombardo’s Democratic opponent, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, has criticized the incumbent’s stance on data centers and just sued the federal government over cuts to its already strained Colorado River allocation. (Lombardo also supports the lawsuit.)

“Now we know why Joe Lombardo says he’s ‘wholeheartedly in support of data centers: He’s bought and paid for by them,” Ford told The Lever in response to the data center-related donations. “Taking care of his and Trump’s ‘billionaire friends’ at Nevadans’ expense is standard operating procedure from Lombardo. I’m running for Governor to pause and audit data centers’ tax breaks and block them from raising our costs, because I fight for working Nevadans — not data center billionaires, like Joe Lombardo.”

On May 11, Better Nevada PAC, a political action committee supporting Lombardo, received $500,000 from Ben Horowitz, cofounder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and another $500,000 from Ben’s wife, Felicia. Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, has invested in numerous AI and data center companies, and Horowitz has long been a prominent political donor. Horowitz and his business partner Marc Andreessen both donated $2.5 million to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, and Horowitz later donated another $2.5 million to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.

Three days after Lombardo received the Horowitzs’ donations, he posted a video on X stating, “I support data centers because they bring jobs, investments, and economic growth to Nevada.”

On May 21, the Better Nevada PAC received another $1 million from Jessica Roy, wife of Rob Roy, who founded Switch, a data center development company currently building facilities in Nevada. Switch has received millions of dollars in tax abatements, according to The Nevada Independent. Andreessen Horowitz is also a major Switch investor.

On June 25, Lombardo also received $5 million from the Republican Governors Association, a nonprofit dedicated to electing GOP governors that has received at least $8.5 million from people and companies invested in AI and data centers since January 2025. Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of investment firm Citadel, donated $3 million; and Paul Singer, CEO of Elliott Investment Management, donated $2.5 million. Both Citadel and Elliott are heavily invested in AI and data centers.

This month, Lombardo told the Latin Chamber of Commerce that data centers could be a “new gold rush,” if the proper guardrails are in place. Standing beside President Donald Trump at a different event, he also voiced his support for Trump’s “billionaire friends” because “those billionaire friends provide jobs. And unless you take care of them, those jobs are absent.”

Lombardo’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

“An Opportunity to Diversify Nevada’s Economy”

In a June op-ed for the Reno Gazette Journal, Lombardo argued that Nevada can pioneer a model for states to effectively work with data centers, calling them “an opportunity to diversify Nevada’s economy, strengthen our workforce and position our state as a national leader in technology and innovation for decades to come.” Data centers will bring jobs and investments to the state, he wrote, as long as guardrails prevent residents from paying higher utility bills and protect the state’s water resources.

He added that data centers are “known to use massive amounts of water… and raise electricity costs for surrounding communities,” but claims that “it isn’t happening in Nevada.”

A January report from the Desert Research Institute, a science nonprofit, found that in 2024, data centers consumed 22 percent of the state’s electrical generation, an amount that the institute predicted could grow to 35 percent by 2030. The same report found that the state’s current development plans could result in data centers consuming up to 16 billion gallons of water annually, according to calculations by The Lever — enough for roughly 150,000 households a year.

“Assuming the highest level of efficiency, the water needed annually for data center cooling under the projected load growth from NV Energy is more than 14,940 times the water needed for a single household, close to 17 times the water needed for an 18-hole golf course, and approximately six times the water needed for an alfalfa farm,” the authors wrote.

Then in May, NV Energy, the state’s largest energy provider, issued a report stating that Nevada’s future energy demands will nearly triple due to data centers.

Earlier this month, NV Energy sued Tract, a data center developer building two massive facilities near Reno, claiming that it is trying to pass infrastructure and energy costs on to consumers. According to NV Energy, Tract is trying to move the matter to a private court to evade public criticism.