Kevin O’Leary says his huge data center will create 10,000 construction jobs. We looked at the numbers.

**From Business Insider’s Ellen Thomas:** 
Kevin O’Leary has said his Utah data center development will create 10,000 construction jobs and 2,000 permanent roles.

There’s one problem: It probably won’t.

The “Shark Tank” investor may have overstated the data center’s hiring potential during the construction phase, Business Insider learned in a conversation with O’Leary Ventures CEO Paul Palandjian.

The accurate estimate is closer to 4,000 new construction jobs over 10 to 15 years — and that isn’t a guarantee.

“Look, these numbers are fluid, and they change by the day,” Palandjian said, adding that the updated estimate is reflective of “our current thinking on the project.”

Dubbed Wonder Valley, O’Leary’s combined data center and power plant has the potential to reach 9 gigawatts of capacity. That would make Wonder Valley one of the world’s biggest data centers if fully built out.

Data centers generally do not create large numbers of permanent, full-time jobs in local economies. Their impact on local economies is harder to measure, in part because the nascent industry is still being studied. They do come with an enormous demand for temporary skilled labor during the construction phase.

[Read more. ](https://www.businessinsider.com/kevin-oleary-utah-data-center-jobs-2026-5?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=insider-economy-sub-post)

Well, for starters, construction jobs like this are only temporary. This on top of the fact that 10,000 is likely rounding up rather generously.

If you feel the need to lie on the front end, that says a whole lot about what you think about who will *actually* be benefitting from the project.

Once the construction project is over, then how many jobs will it create?