The Florida Democratic Party (FDP) is on the attack following a report that a Big Tech billionaire will be spending more than half a million dollars in digital ads against them in state legislative races in the November midterm.
According to Jason Garcia, tech investor Scott Banister is behind First Amendment LLC, a political action committee (PAC) going after Democrats in two dozen House and Senate Races in Florida. Banister, a longtime Republican donor, is close friends with Elon Musk and original member of the "PayPal Mafia," a group of employees who started major tech companies after eBay acquired PayPal in 2002.
Banister is also heavily invested in artificial intelligence data centers and flock cameras, according to reports shared by the FDP
“Florida Republicans are handing our neighborhoods over to Big Tech for massive data centers and turning our streets into a Flock-powered surveillance state. Now one of the industry’s billionaires is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat the Democrats standing in his way,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said. “Whatever happened to ‘Don’t Tread on Me’? Apparently that only applies when Republicans aren’t the ones doing the treading. Democrats aren’t going anywhere, and we’ll keep fighting for Florida families stuck paying higher power bills while Republicans sell our state to the highest bidder.”
Senate Democratic-Leader Designate Tracie Davis added, "“It was President Franklin D. Roosevelt who said ‘I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made‘ and it is clear that Democrats in Florida have struck a nerve among the Big Tech billionaires looking to control our lives,” stated “But while Big Tech is rushing to build AI data centers in our backyards, and Florida Republicans are forcing them onto us by negotiating secret deals with no public input, Democrats will keep fighting to ensure it is the people, not the powerful, who have the final say over our futures.”
The news follows a conservative group supporting Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly released an ad criticizing Republican challenger Byron Donalds on data centers this week. Jolly has called for a one-year moratorium on hyperscale data centers due to environmental concerns, neighborhood disruptions, and more.
