“…Quietly over the last decade, Ohio has become a state of incredible national importance, as it continues to attract data centers from American “royalty” and Big Tech stalwarts into its friendly regulatory borders. But long before Amazon, Meta, Anduril, Microsoft and others took their power-hungry –– literally and figuratively –– refuge in the Buckeye State, the most well-known financier of Jeffrey Epstein, Leslie Wexner, and his extensive crime-linked network were laying the foundation for the new Silicon Valley, now known as the Silicon Heartland, along the Ohio River.
Wexner’s own statements last year underscore Ohio’s coming importance in the age of ascendant, AI-powered technocracy. Last May, he stated that Columbus in particular would soon become an international AI destination. He also asserted that “probably the largest AI investment in the world will happen in Columbus.” Wexner would know, as he’s personally responsible for Ohio’s –– specifically Columbus’ –– rise as one of the most important AI hubs in the country.
Yet, Wexner, with Epstein’s help, has done much more than attract massive AI data centers to the state. As this investigation will show, Wexner and his closest allies, Epstein among them, worked to create a model for the takeover of local governments via public-private partnership, starting first in New Albany beginning in the late 1980s. It has since spread to cover the entire state of Ohio via a network of public-private partnerships Wexner helped create. This system has allowed Wexner to use billions of dollars of Ohio taxpayer money, with little to no public scrutiny, to finance what can only be described as a massive welfare system for corporations. Among that system’s current biggest beneficiaries are Wexner’s New Albany Company as well as massive Big Tech corporations with important ties to Jeffrey Epstein (e.g. Amazon and Google). Meanwhile, regular Ohioans are seeing their power bills jump, provoking an affordability crisis in the state, while funding for public schools, libraries and healthcare is cut dramatically –– all to keep the corporate welfare engine designed by Wexner running full tilt…”