Businessman Kevin O’Leary is facing a defamation lawsuit from two Utah residents who opposed his proposed data centre near the Great Salt Lake.
The plaintiffs, Gabrielle Finlayson and Josh Kanter, allege that O’Leary falsely accused them of acting as Chinese government agents during television appearances.
The lawsuit was filed in mid-July in a Utah federal court by Finlayson, Kanter, and their affiliated organizations.
The filing claims O’Leary made repeated on-air accusations that the pair were operatives backed by the Chinese Communist Party.
According to the complaint, the allegations caused the plaintiffs devastating reputational harm, economic losses, emotional distress, and threats to their safety.
A cable news network has also been named in the suit for repeatedly airing O’Leary’s comments without qualification.
The complaint states the network invited O’Leary to attack the plaintiffs on multiple programs over a three-week period.
Court filings list at least ten media appearances in May and June where O’Leary repeated claims that Finlayson and Kanter served as proxies for the Chinese government.
During a May broadcast, O’Leary named both individuals and their organizations, questioning who was funding their opposition to his 40,000-acre data centre project.
The network said it publicly corrected the record on every program where O’Leary’s comments aired and pledged to defend against the lawsuit.
O’Leary later posted a clarification stating he had no evidence the plaintiffs or their groups were funded by China or the Chinese Communist Party.
A host who aired the accusations also issued a corrective statement in late June.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer said their lives were upended and reputations destroyed because basic verification was never conducted.
Finlayson and Kanter maintain they played virtually no role in leading opposition and were never contacted for comment before being named on air.
O’Leary’s legal counsel dismissed the case as a cash grab and said the plaintiffs declined an invitation to discuss the project.
The defence argued the plaintiffs put their operations and funding at issue and welcomed discovery into the campaign against the data centre.
