On June 9, Nichole Heil of PESP provided the below testimony to the El Paso, Texas City Council regarding the proposed Meta data center:<\/p>\n
Good morning. My name is Nichole with the Private Equity Stakeholder Project.<\/p>\n
We are a nonprofit organization that serves as the main watchdog group for private equity firms and similar financial firms.<\/p>\n
I would like to speak about the proposed META data center, JPMorgan\u2019s role in lining up $13 billion in financing for the data center, JPMorgan\u2019s ownership of El Paso Electric, and conflicts of interest this may present.<\/p>\n
Recently, we have seen a growing number of private equity acquisitions of electric utilities seeking to capitalize on the AI boom. For example, we are working with community organizations in New Mexico that are opposed to the private equity takeover of New Mexico\u2019s main electric utility, TXNM.<\/p>\n
One of the concerns we have seen repeatedly with Wall Street buyouts of utilities is the conflicts of interest they create given the investment managers\u2019 broader business \u2013 i.e. they may own, lend money to, of otherwise benefit from other companies that do business with the utility. Utilities are supposed to serve the public, not their Wall Street owners\u2019 broader business.<\/p>\n
As you know, JPMorgan in 2019 acquired<\/a> El Paso Electric for $4.3 billion through its Infrastructure Investments Fund, which continues to own<\/a> the utility.<\/p>\n JPMorgan\u2019s El Paso Electric is building<\/a> an almost $500 million, 366-megawatt natural gas plant dedicated to Meta\u2019s facility, which will be one of the utility\u2019s largest customers.<\/p>\n