A Louisiana state senator helped secure Meta’s largest datacenter. Then he sold the land beside it

Key Points:

• Louisiana State Senator John “Jay” Morris used his political influence to support Meta’s Hyperion datacenter project, sponsoring bills and lobbying regulators while simultaneously buying and selling land around the site, raising potential conflicts of interest.
• Morris and his business partners sold hundreds of acres to Entergy for a methane-burning power plant to supply electricity to Hyperion, but did not disclose these land deals publicly, as Louisiana law does not require sale prices to be revealed.
• Ethics experts argue Morris likely violated state laws by participating in official actions that financially benefited him, failing to recuse himself from votes, and not disclosing conflicts of interest, though Morris denies wrongdoing and claims his actions complied with ethics rules.
• The Hyperion datacenter, spanning over 3,650 acres in Richland Parish, has sparked local concerns about environmental impacts and increased traffic, despite promises of economic benefits such as jobs and increased tax revenue.
• Entergy and state officials maintain the project was developed with broad economic interests in mind, while critics highlight weakened ethics laws and call for greater public scrutiny of elected officials’ conduct in Louisiana.