AI Zillionaires Are Starting to Get Scared as the Public Turns Against Them

Public backlash against AI is growing, with polls showing three-quarters of Americans want stricter regulation. Billionaire Mark Cuban warns tech moguls that opposition to data centers reflects deeper hatred of AI and wealth concentration, urging them to donate to communities and support artists to avoid a revolt.

There’s no doubt that the broader public has turned against AI in a serious way. In the United States, a YouGov pol found that three-quarters of Americans think AI should be more heavily regulated, an anxiety shared across the political aisle, the Economist observed https://www.economist.com/united-states/2026/06/25/democrats-and-republicans-agree-ai-is-scary . The US populace is likewise increasingly fearful of the economic impacts https://futurism.com/future-society/americans-alarmed-tech-industry-ai-bubble-market of AI, especially as powerful tech companies pour money https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-elections-midterms into state and federal elections. As that anger boils over, people are increasingly channeling their frustration toward data centers https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/data-centers-shockingly-unpopular-poll — one of the few tangible points of leverage ordinary people have against an otherwise untouchable, trillion-dollar tech industry. The world’s tech billionaires are taking notice, carving out distant island compounds https://futurism.com/future-society/mark-zuckerberg-bully-native-hawaiians and private jet fleets https://futurism.com/future-society/website-apocalypse-billionaire-jets-fleeing in case of revolution. Mark Cuban, who made his vast fortune during the dot-com boom and has publicly beefed with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/mark-cuban-slams-openai-ceo-145223124.html , is now warning his fellow moguls that the public’s discontent runs far deeper than AI. WAs reported by Fortune https://fortune.com/2026/06/26/mark-cuban-ai-backlash-silicon-valley/ , Cuban tweeted https://x.com/mcuban/status/2070211760196587534?s=20 that “it’s time for everyone to realize that the fight against data centers has nothing to do with data centers. They have become a proxy for the hate towards AI and the concentration and accumulation of wealth it’s creating.” Whether the public is really as unconcerned about soaring electricity prices, water shortages, and pollution https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-data-centers-opposition-inflation , as Cuban makes it out to be remains to be seen — but at least, the billionaire class appears to be paying at least some degree of attention. Evidently fearful that AI backlash could spiral into some kind of socialist revolt, the billionaire offered a laundry-list of ways the tech industry could placate the apparently witless public. These include donating billions of dollars to small towns and cities, extending an olive branch to artists and creative unions, and ignoring the temptation to hire famous people to endorse AI. “If you don’t kiss the asses of the people that go to work every day, and are just trying to pay their bills, you will fall far, far short of the capacity you need to make your business work,” Cuban wrote. More on the ultra-wealthy: New Website Detects Apocalypse If Billionaire Jets Start Fleeing en Masse https://futurism.com/future-society/website-apocalypse-billionaire-jets-fleeing