Breaking new reporting from the Alaska Current reveals that multiple data center utility executives maxed out their donations to Dan Sullivan’s campaign “after he successfully pushed the military to open up Alaskan Air Force bases to data center developers.”

The donations from seven different executives who invested in or were strongly connected to the data centers came shortly after the Air Force announced it would open up Alaska’s military bases to data center developers, which came as a result of Sullivan’s “strong urging.”

In spite of Alaskans sounding the alarm about fuel shortages and electric grid capacity as a result of data center development in the state, Sullivan has been pitching data centers “to everybody in the country who will listen,” saying: “We want you guys to all come up to Alaska with your data centers. We’ve got a lot of cold weather, we got gas, we got land, we got water, we got it all. Come on up.”

Alaskans, meanwhile, are concerned data centers will lead to a “decline in the quality of life with noise and water pollution,” with some Alaskans worried it “could upend their lives.” 

Read more below:

Alaska Current: EXCLUSIVE: Data center utility execs maxed out donations to Dan Sullivan

• Within a nine-day period last spring, executives tied to a data center utility investor with major public projects in the Arctic dumped more than $50,000 into Alaska’s tightly contested US Senate race between Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola. The money flowed to Sullivan shortly after he successfully pushed the military to open up Alaskan Air Force bases to data center developers.  

• Federal Elections Commission filings show the donations occurred between April 23 and May 1. The investor, Peter Corsell, maxed out his contribution to Sullivan’s candidate committee in both the primary and general elections at $3,500 each and gave the same amounts, on the same day, to Sullivan’s joint-fundraising committee, Sullivan Victory. All told, Corsell contributed $14,000 in support of Sullivan’s reelection bid. Three executives with ties to Corsell also maxed out to his candidate committee in the primary and matched to the joint committee, totaling $7,000 each. A fifth donor matched Corsell’s $14,000 total spend, and a sixth contributed to both committees in lower amounts. 

• On May 15, another executive with ties to Corsell also contributed $3,500 to each committee, bringing the total contributions from this network to $58,000. 

• Corsell’s firm, Twenty First Century Utilities (TFC), has a lot on the line: a change in party control of Alaska’s Senate seat and of the US Senate itself could complicate their no-bid contract to build a multibillion dollar mega utility in partnership with the North Slope Borough, the county-level government of the northernmost part of the state.

• In May, the Alaska Current reported on apparent conflicts of interest with three firms — Twenty First Century, Saige Consulting, and I Squared Capital — tied to Corsell and more than $90 million in state contracts awarded by Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s former revenue commissioner. In October, we detailed how TFC executives pumped money into the successful re-election campaign of North Slope Borough Mayor Josiah Patkotak in the month after he awarded them a no-bid, million-dollar contract.

• A similar pattern emerged last spring between executives tied to those same three firms and Sen. Sullivan’s re-election campaign. At Sullivan’s “strong urging,” the Air Force announced in April that it would open military bases in Alaska to data center developers. 

• The donations from the executives came shortly after that. In a business proposal to the North Slope Borough written several months earlier, Twenty First Century Utilities had named Elmendorf Air Force Base as a target.   

• Neither Sen. Sullivan’s campaign nor office responded to multiple requests for comment. Peter Corsell, Twenty First Century Utilities, and the North Slope Borough have also not responded to multiple requests for comment. Saige did not provide a statement in time for publication.  

• Peltola’s campaign criticized Sullivan for taking donations from data center developers. 

• “Mary knows that decisions on data centers need to be made by the Alaska communities who will be impacted, not Lower 48 corporations or self-serving politicians like Dan Sullivan,” the campaign said in a statement.

• According to planning documents obtained exclusively by The Alaska Current, the North Slope Power project will encompass a natural gas plant scalable to 10+ gigawatts and a colocated hyperscale data center in Prudhoe Bay, and community microgrids across the borough. TFC estimates a cost of $13 billion for a basic build of up to 3 gigawatts and more than $27 billion with the addition of a southbound transmission line servicing more data centers. The project is expected to generate $5 billion in cash flow to the developers through 2027. 

• There are currently no power plants of any kind with 3 gigawatt capacity in the unforgiving terrain of the Arctic. If the North Slope plant reaches the intended capacity of 10+ gigawatts, it will be the largest natural gas plant in the world, more than tripling the total power capacity of the state. At either end of the scale, TFC will collect billions of dollars in fees and equity stakes. 

• Donald Trump’s second presidency has paved the way for supersized deals like North Slope Power. Upon his return to the White House, he immediately prioritized the production of liquified natural gas in Alaska, and data center construction nationwide, through a $500 billion Stargate AI initiative with tech giants OpenAI and Oracle. 

• Trump set off a frenzy of dealmaking in Alaska by Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Sen. Sullivan, who have aggressively courted energy-hungry data center clients for the unbuilt and long languishing AKLNG pipeline. While Peltola supports more energy production, she has not shared Sullivan’s enthusiasm for data centers.

• Amidst the natural gas gold rush, Dunleavy blocked transparency into controversial deals his administration tried to cut with AKLNG developer Glenfarne and data center developer DigitalBridge. If Democrats win either the governorship or the Senate seat next week, they will have greater ability to investigate and enforce audits, which have been mandated by the legislature, but ignored by the governor. 

• While Sullivan began publicly talking about the idea of opening up Alaska’s military bases to data center developers in January, Twenty First Century Utilities had been pitching it privately months before.

• On April 7, the borough approved a $9 million contract increase to Saige Consulting, bringing the total value of Saige’s contract to nearly $13 million. Saige managing partner Charles Hu donated $14,000 to Sullivan’s candidate and joint fundraising committees in the weeks after. 

• The donations started flowing to Sullivan from Corsell-tied executives on April 23. Several things are striking about the contributions to Sullivan: the clustering of the bulk of the donations in a tight time frame, the high number of maximum contributions, which is $3,500 per election for candidate campaigns, the matching contributions to an affiliated joint fundraising committee, and the lack of similar giving to other candidates not only this cycle, but over time. Major donors to affiliated committees often make these contributions at the request of professional fundraisers, campaign staff, or the candidates themselves, and these contributions are frequently clustered around fundraising receptions. 

• According to FEC filings, the Sullivan campaign paid the American Gas Association in Washington, DC for food and beverages on April 23 — a kind of payment typically made in conjunction with a reception. Conveniently, Sullivan and Gov. Dunleavy were both in town, the latter to give a keynote address to the Data Center World Convention that morning. It is unclear if Corsell or any of the other executives attended the reception.

• Adding to the calendar convergence, the Air Force hosted a virtual industry day on April 23 to engage with potential data center development partners and Joint Base Elmendorf held an in-person site visit on April 28. It’s not yet clear if any leases have been awarded.