OpenAI Will Keep Building Data Centers After Midterm Backlash, CFO Sarah Friar Says
OpenAI will keep building data centers in the United States, even after midterm voters sent a clear message against them. That was the direct answer from Sarah Friar, the chief financial officer of OpenAI, in an interview with CNBC on Friday, November 6, 2026. Friar said the company will keep investing in artificial intelligence infrastructure because customer demand keeps growing. She said the election did not change the plan, but it did sharpen the focus on winning trust in the towns where new facilities are built.
Quick Facts
| Detail | What We Know |
|---|---|
| Who spoke | Sarah Friar, chief financial officer of OpenAI |
| Interview date | Friday, November 6, 2026 |
| Interviewer | Sara Eisen of CNBC, on Squawk on the Street |
| Location | Citi TMT Leadership Summit in Pebble Beach, California |
| Ballot measures counted | 41 local data-center measures across 10 states, a media-compiled count by CNBC citing Ballotpedia |
| Measures going against development | 40 of 41, with only one breaking the pattern |
| Main community concerns | Electricity costs, water use and noise |
| New commitments | No more non-disclosure agreements with public officials, plus shared site plans and impact details |
| Business growth | 70 percent quarter over quarter growth in the third quarter |
| Weekly users | 1.2 billion people use OpenAI products each week |
| Funding talks | Raising funding at a 1.25 trillion dollar pre-money valuation |
| Compute spend target | 600 billion dollars by 2030 |
What Friar Actually Said on CNBC
Friar spoke to CNBC host Sara Eisen on Squawk on the Street from the Citi TMT Leadership Summit in Pebble Beach, California. The interview came just days after the midterm elections, in which voters in town after town pushed back against new data centers. The question hanging over the conversation was simple. Would OpenAI slow down, change course, or keep building?
Her answer was plain. She said the company will keep investing to meet customer demand. In her words, when she thinks about the midterms, she needs to keep thinking about how the company keeps investing to meet that customer demand. It was not a hedged answer, and it was not a promise to pause. Demand for artificial intelligence tools is still rising, and the buildings that power those tools have to keep going up.
At the same time, Friar did not brush the election aside. She said she did not think the midterm dramatically changed anything for the company, but she added a second thought that matters just as much. If the midterm means more focus on data centers and communities, she said, OpenAI is going to keep doing the work to get into those communities and to build trust with them. The plan stays, and the outreach changes.
The Midterm Results Behind the Backlash
CNBC, citing Ballotpedia and its own results, counted 41 local data-center ballot measures across 10 states. In 40 of them, voters either backed restrictions on data centers or turned down measures that favored development. Only one measure broke the pattern. Forty out of 41 is not a close split. It is a near sweep, and it happened across different states and different kinds of communities.
It is worth being careful about what this count is. The 40-of-41 figure is a media-compiled count, put together by CNBC from Ballotpedia data and its own election results. It is not an official federal statistic, and it does not cover every local vote in the country. But as a snapshot of the mood in the places that actually voted on the issue, it is hard to ignore. Voters who had a direct say mostly said no, or at least said slow down.
The political result also had a market effect. Fears that the Democratic midterm sweep could slow data-center construction helped rattle investors. Reuters reporting put the damage at about 2.5 trillion dollars erased from the United States stock market on Thursday.
The Three Concerns OpenAI Keeps Hearing
Friar named three concerns that come up again and again when OpenAI enters a community. The first is electricity costs. Residents worry that a giant new customer on the local grid will push their own power bills higher. The second is water use. People want to know how much water a data center drinks, and whether it will compete with homes, farms and businesses. The third is noise. The fans and cooling systems that keep servers from overheating can be loud, and neighbors do not want to live next to a constant hum.
On water, Friar gave a concrete picture. She described a large data-center footprint as usually requiring about two Olympic swimming pools of water, trucked in and recirculated. She added that most water consumption is instead associated with the people working at the facilities, rather than the machines themselves.
The New Promises: No More NDAs and Open Site Plans
One day before the interview, on Thursday, November 5, OpenAI published a policy blueprint and a set of commitments for responsible artificial intelligence infrastructure. The document is part of the company’s answer to the backlash. It sets out how OpenAI says it will build, and what it will tell communities along the way.
The most concrete change is about secrecy. As part of its outreach, OpenAI said it will stop using non-disclosure agreements with public officials during negotiations about future sites. Non-disclosure agreements, often called NDAs, are contracts that stop people from talking about a deal while it is being worked out. Critics have long argued that these agreements keep residents in the dark while decisions about their towns are made behind closed doors. Dropping them is a direct response to that complaint.
OpenAI also said it will share site plans and impact details with nearby residents. That means people living close to a proposed facility should be able to see what is planned and what its effects might be, before construction starts.
The Business Case: Growth, Users and a Big Valuation
Behind the promises sits a business that is growing fast, and that growth is the reason Friar says the building cannot stop. The business grew 70 percent quarter over quarter in the third quarter. Its enterprise business, the part that sells to other companies, doubled. And 1.2 billion people now use its products each week. Revenue, Friar said, is split evenly between consumer and enterprise.
The money side of the story is just as large. Friar confirmed that a funding round is ongoing, and said OpenAI is in talks to raise funding at a 1.25 trillion dollar pre-money valuation. That figure, if the round closes on those terms, would put OpenAI among the most valuable private companies in the world.
Friar also spoke about a possible public listing. OpenAI confidentially filed its prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, and she said the company would continue to look at a 2027 debut. A confidential filing is an early step toward an initial public offering, and a 2027 debut would be one of the most watched listings in years. For now, it remains a plan rather than a date.
One figure that is often confused with this story is worth clearing up. CNBC has reported a 600 billion dollar total compute spend target for 2030. That is the number to use when talking about OpenAI’s infrastructure spending plans. The wider technology market is moving in the same direction, as readers can see in our coverage of the Anthropic IPO valuation risk at 1.5 trillion dollars on November 6, which shows how the race among artificial intelligence companies is pushing valuations higher across the whole sector.
What the Market Did Next
The market reaction to the midterm tells its own story about how seriously investors take this fight. On Thursday, the day after the vote, fears that construction could slow helped wipe about 2.5 trillion dollars from the United States stock market, according to Reuters reporting. Technology stocks, which had powered much of the market’s rise, were at the center of the fall.
Friday brought a bounce. The Nasdaq 100 gained nearly 2 percent, and Nvidia shares rose about 4 percent. Nvidia matters here because its chips power many of the servers inside data centers.
Friar’s interview landed in the middle of that swing, and it was clearly aimed at calming it. By saying the company will keep investing, she was telling investors that the plan has not changed. By talking about trust and community outreach, she was telling voters that the company has heard them. Both audiences were listening, and both will judge the words against what happens next. Readers can follow the hardware side of the same story in our report on chip stocks rebounding in premarket trading on November 6, and the shakeout is not limited to artificial intelligence, as covered in our story on Tesla winding down Cybertruck production and turning to the Cybercab on November 6.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will OpenAI stop building data centers after the midterm backlash?
No. Chief financial officer Sarah Friar told CNBC on November 6, 2026, that OpenAI will keep investing in artificial intelligence infrastructure and data centers. She said the election did not dramatically change the plan, but it sharpened the focus on building trust in local communities.
How many local data-center ballot measures went against development?
CNBC, citing Ballotpedia and its own results, counted 41 local measures across 10 states. In 40 of them, voters either backed restrictions or turned down measures that favored development. Only one broke the pattern. This is a media-compiled count, not an official federal statistic.
What is OpenAI doing differently to win over communities?
OpenAI published a policy blueprint on November 5, 2026. It said it will stop using non-disclosure agreements with public officials during negotiations about future sites, and will share site plans and impact details with nearby residents.
How big is OpenAI’s business now?
Friar said the business grew 70 percent quarter over quarter in the third quarter, the enterprise business doubled, and 1.2 billion people use its products each week. Revenue is split evenly between consumer and enterprise. The company is in talks to raise funding at a 1.25 trillion dollar pre-money valuation, and it is looking at a possible 2027 public debut.
Sources
- Unite AI, OpenAI CFO says data center buildout will continue after midterms
- ERI Info, OpenAI investing in AI data centers despite election results, CFO says
- IndexBox, OpenAI to continue US data center expansion despite Democratic midterm sweep
- Finimize, OpenAI keeps building US data centers after midterm backlash
Final Thoughts
Sarah Friar gave a clear answer on Friday, and it is worth taking at face value. OpenAI is not stopping. The demand is too large, the growth is too fast, and the money behind the company is too big for a pause. But the vote counts are just as clear. In 40 of 41 local measures, voters said they want limits, or they said no outright. That is a message a company cannot ignore, even if it does not change the building plan.
OpenAI has promised to drop secrecy agreements and share its plans with neighbors. If it keeps those promises, and if the answers on power, water and noise get better, some towns may change their minds. If the promises fade once the cameras move on, the backlash will only grow.
