The AI Backlash Is Turning Violent: From Molotov Cocktails to Data Center Shutdowns, a Movement Is Building

Ron Gibson’s eight-year-old son had been playing with Legos by the dining room table the night he fell asleep. Thirteen bullets ripped through the family’s Indianapolis home’s front door a few hours later. A few days prior, Gibson, a city councilman, had publicly supported a data center project. The note that was left behind stated, in capital letters, “NO DATA CENTERS.” That detail—the Legos, the doormat, the handwritten note—has an almost cinematic quality, but it actually happened in April, and no one is quite sure what to do with it.

Daniel Moreno-Gama, a 20-year-old from San Francisco, allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s $27 million Pacific Heights mansion before traveling to OpenAI’s headquarters with a chair and threatening to set it on fire. A second man and woman opened fire outside Altman’s home two days later. A manifesto is described in the court documents. Naturally, a folk hero was described on the internet. One commenter wrote, “I hope that Molotov is okay,” on a post that received thousands of likes in a matter of hours.

It’s difficult to ignore how rapidly the atmosphere has changed. A year ago, the prevailing sentiment regarding AI was one of wonder, followed by uneasiness and a sort of resigned shrug. There’s something else underneath now, something more dangerous and less articulate. According to a recent survey, only 26% of Americans believe AI is a positive force. Curious, anxious, and increasingly angry people make up the remaining 74%.

Coastal flashpoints are not the only places where the rage is present. A high school gymnasium was packed with protesters against a $6 billion data center in Festus, Missouri, a city of about 13,000 people located about 35 miles south of St. Louis. In any case, the council gave its approval. Four incumbents were removed from office by voters a week later. Similar uprisings have occurred in small North Carolina townships, counties in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and Independence, Missouri. At least 142 activist groups are currently active in 24 states, according to Data Center Watch. Approximately $64 billion worth of projects have been blocked or postponed by communities in the last two years. Despite the governor’s veto, Maine’s legislature passed the nation’s first statewide moratorium.

What’s odd, and most likely significant, is who’s showing up. One anti-data-center group’s leader recounted meetings where “someone there in a Trump hat” stood next to “someone in a Democratic Socialist shirt.” Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon, who hardly agree on anything, have recently sounded uncannily alike when discussing artificial intelligence. Both present the technology as an innovation-covered class conflict. Republicans make up about 55% of elected officials who openly oppose data centers, which complicates the conventional narrative about who welcomes and fears progress.

A portion of this is financial. About 55,000 American workers were laid off due to AI in 2025, which is more than twelve times the number from the year before. White-collar entry-level jobs are disappearing before recent college graduates can apply for them. More than half of Gen Z regularly uses AI tools, but less than 20% are optimistic about its future, according to a Gallup poll. For the same reason that an employee might object to the machine that has been ordered to replace them, they use ChatGPT for homework and resent it.

In essays and interviews, the executives developing this technology have spent years cautioning that AI could end humanity and eliminate millions of jobs. Now that someone is taking them seriously, they appear shocked. In his newsletter, Brian Merchant stated bluntly that “ordinary people are finally saying wake up.” It is genuinely unclear whether this develops into a long-lasting political movement or eventually burns out like the majority of American protest movements. The fact that the backlash won’t stop from here seems less ambiguous. You get the impression from reading the comments on those Altman posts that something has changed and that those creating the future may have miscalculated how the rest of the nation will welcome it.