Webb argues that Ohio’s “Silicon Heartland” data-center buildout is anchored by Leslie Wexner — Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent benefactor, whom she links to alleged organized-crime ties and the Mega Group that spawned Birthright Israel — who used public-private partnerships and his New Albany Company to seize de facto control of local and state government and funnel taxpayer money to big tech and military contractors. She contends this amounts to a “quasi-legal corporatization of government” advanced by a Thiel-linked network (JD Vance, Anduril, Palantir, Crusoe AI building OpenAI’s Stargate) pursuing an “extreme privatization” endgame drawn from Curtis Yarvin’s neo-reactionary “CEO-dictator” vision, with data centers doubling as surveillance infrastructure deeply intermingled with Israeli intelligence-linked startups (via Paul Singer’s Startup Nation Central). She frames the ultimate goal as an anti-human “totalitarian capitalism” — a technologically enforced feudalism where, citing Yuval Noah Harari, most people become “exploited versus expendable” — and urges boycotting and divesting from big-tech products as the best nonviolent resistance.
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Wexner, New Albany, and privatized government: Webb says Wexner (with associate John Kessler) used the New Albany Company and lobbied law changes to let a private company tax residents and issue bonds, becoming New Albany’s de facto government; Ohio now hosts ~193 data centers (121 near New Albany), fourth in the US.
Big tech fused with the national security state: She cites the 2018 Eric Schmidt-chaired National Security Commission on AI as setting the US AI roadmap, argues the intelligence community and military depend on the same big-tech firms whose oligarchs are major donors, and points to less-visible players like Crusoe AI building OpenAI’s Stargate and expanding to Argentina with Thiel and Milei.
Jobs Ohio and unaccountable public money: Webb describes Jobs Ohio buying the state liquor-tax rights for $1.4 billion as a “dark money” entity exempt from disclosing fund use, offering tax exemptions to data centers and Thiel-backed Anduril, while data centers create mostly temporary construction jobs (20-30 permanent each) and Governor DeWine — a Wexner beneficiary — vetoed curbs and gutted services.
Israeli ties and the Thiel/Anduril network: She argues most New Albany tech tenants have Israeli subsidiaries, links Wexner to Israel and the Mega Group, and claims Paul Singer’s Startup Nation Central was built to enmesh US tech with Israeli intelligence-linked startups to prevent BDS; she details Anduril (Palmer Luckey, Trey Stevens), its Arsenal 1 drone factory, and a Thiel-linked Erebor stablecoin bank in Columbus.
Smart Columbus and “totalitarian capitalism”: Webb describes Smart Columbus as a smart-city test bed aiming to phase out private car ownership for ride-sharing fleets (echoing the Schmidt commission’s AI-training rationale), and frames the broader vision — drawing on Nick Land, Yarvin, and Harari — as technologically enforced feudalism, urging divestment and boycott as resistance.
