A pointed jab at outsourced government policymaking landed on Friday, August 7, 2026, when entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — founder of Strive Asset Management and former co-lead of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory effort — posted a sardonic one-liner taking aim at a public official whose data center policy, he implied, was ghostwritten by consultants.

Ramaswamy's post read: 'Go easy on her, she's a little upset right now with the consultants who wrote her data center policy for her.' The unnamed official's identity and the specific policy in question remain unconfirmed, but the target of the critique is unmistakable: the growing practice of state and local governments outsourcing the drafting of complex tech-sector legislation to outside consulting firms.

The consultant problem in AI-era infrastructure policy

Since 2022, the explosive growth of artificial intelligence has sent data center demand surging across the United States. States have scrambled to craft tax incentives, energy frameworks, and land-use rules to attract or regulate these facilities — often leaning on specialist consultants to fill gaps in in-house expertise. The result, critics argue, is policy that reflects the priorities of the firms paid to write it, not the constituents it governs.

Ramaswamy has made consultant dependency a signature target. His work with DOGE was explicitly framed around stripping back reliance on external advisers in federal decision-making. That same instinct now appears directed at state-level tech governance, where the stakes — power grids, land rights, billions in investment — are anything but abstract.

Why data center policy is suddenly a political flashpoint

Data centers are no longer quiet infrastructure. They consume vast amounts of electricity, draw scrutiny over water use and local land values, and sit at the centre of the global AI race. A policy misstep — or one quietly shaped by a consultant with competing interests — can lock in consequences for years. Ramaswamy's mockery, however light in tone, points at a structural vulnerability: when governments lack internal technical capacity, the people who fill that gap gain outsized influence over public outcomes.

The post arrives as multiple US states are actively revising their data center incentive programmes, making the timing sharp even if the specific target stays unnamed.

Whether this is a prelude to a formal policy proposal or simply a well-aimed provocation, Ramaswamy has put a real question on the table — who actually writes the rules governing the infrastructure that will run the next decade of the American economy?