What is Virginia?
Virginia is a U.S. state whose governor leads the executive branch, manages the Commonwealth’s budget, and appoints key leaders. The material tracks Virginia as a focal point for data center and energy infrastructure debates, including power siting, transmission costs, and electricity affordability.
Company timeline
- Jun 2026 - Shayle Kann said a community rejected a gas plant but approved a fusion plant, conditioning approval on it being a fusion plant.
- Jun 2026 - Jason Calacanis said backup generators in Virginia are now running permanently because operators cannot get enough grid power.
- Aug 2026 - Shayle Kann said most transmission upgrade costs were allocated to a data center tariff rather than residential customers.
- Aug 2026 - Shayle Kann said electricity affordability was the number two issue in the Spanberger election and will rank first or second in many of this year’s 36 governor’s races.
- Sep 2026 - Michael Thomas said developers were told over the prior couple of years that grid connection would take about 7 years.
- Sep 2026 - David Sacks said average property taxes in Lowden County, Virginia, fell by $6,000 due to data center revenue.
Where it appears in the record
Every line below is attributed to a named speaker.
A Virginia community rejected a natural gas plant on the same site but approved a fusion plant, even writing into the permit that it must remain a fusion plant.
“Something that a gas plant on the same site did not get. Like this community said no to a gas plant. They said yes to a fusion plant. They even conditioned it. It has to be a fusion plant.”Shayle Kann · 29 Jun 2026
Virginia regulators shifted most transmission upgrade costs to data centers, cutting the projected residential monthly bill increase from $3 to 94 cents.
“They allocated most of the costs of that transmission upgrade to the data center tariff and not to residential customers.”Shayle Kann · 7 Aug 2026
Dominion Energy told developers it would take about 7 years to connect a gigawatt-scale data center to the grid in Virginia.
“They were telling developers over the last couple years it would take about 7 years to connect.”Michael Thomas · 16 Sep 2026
Data center revenue cut average household property taxes by $6,000 in Loudoun County, Virginia.
“We've seen that in Lowden County, Virginia, the average taxpayers property taxes went down by $6,000 because they're getting all this data center revenue.”David Sacks · 4 Sep 2026
Electricity affordability ranked as the number two issue in the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial race, with 36 governor's races on the 2026 ballot where it is expected to be a top-one or top-two issue.
“Electricity affordability was the number two issue in the Spanberger Cheryl election last year and I think it will be a number one or number two issue in many states for the 36 governor's races this year.”Shayle Kann · 7 Aug 2026
Packets destined for China always traverse Chinese carriers regardless of where the router is physically located, so evicting Chinese telecom racks from the US does not prevent Chinese access to US IP traffic.
“Packets to China cross Chinese carriers, no matter where that router is, whether it's in Virginia or whether it's in Hong Kong, right? And so, evicting the racks and you know, the same thing keeps popping up in Hong Kong or in other parts of China.”<UNKNOWN> · 7 Sep 2026
Virginia data centers are now running diesel backup generators as their primary power source because grid capacity is insufficient, not because of outages.
“These were put in according to the story in Virginia as a backup. So if they lost power, this would flip over. >> now they're the main generator because they can't get enough grid juice that they have to turn these on permanently.”Jason Calacanis · 27 Jun 2026