J.B. Pritzker criticized over Illinois Meta comments
This weekend, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker took to his personal Twitter account to praise the relationship between Meta (formerly known as Facebook) and its relationship with Illinois. This comes after Wednesday when Meta began using its $1 million DeKalb data center.
Specifically, Pritzker wrote: “It isn’t an accident that @Metaand many other tech giants are seeing massive potential in our great state for data center growth. It’s a reflection of the hard work and investments we’ve made to build the innovative tech ecosystem Illinois is today.”
Although Pritzker was incredibly positive about the relationship, many of his constituents took to Twitter to disagree with his claims and let their voices be heard.
Replying to this, one user claimed: “Data centers don’t employ any significant amount of people, they don’t generate sales tax revenue, they suck up immense amounts of power from our grid…What’s the brag here?”
Elsewhere, another user named Gibbs added: “It’s also not an accident that violent crime is out of control all over Chicago & Cook County. Due to the inaction of our politicians and coddling of criminals by the court system & Cook Cty States Attorney.”
With this said, Pritzker was criticized for both his tackling of crime in the state as well as the potential benefits of having the data center based there. As ever with politics, the devil is in the detail.
