Louisiana Superintendent: Meta's Community Messaging Targets the Least Informed, Not the Most

On the September 17 episode of All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg, titled "Meta's Dina Powell McCormick: The Case for Data Centers, Backlash, AI Job Boom & Meta's Future," a Louisiana school superintendent laid out the financial upside of hosting a Meta data center — and, in the same breath, described the communication strategy behind winning local support.

The numbers first. In Richland Parish, a portion of local sales tax is earmarked for school employee salaries, paid out as periodic checks. In December 2025, a half-cent sales tax check to certified employees — a term for state-licensed teaching staff — doubled from roughly $4,000 the prior year to about $8,000. By June, after a full year of sales tax growth tied to the data center buildout, the check reportedly reached $40,000 to $50,000, up from about $10,000 the year before. Combined, the superintendent put the net increase for teachers at around $45,000.

That windfall traces back to a Meta investment the panel described as $50 billion in scale, arriving in a parish where average wages had run $36,000 to $38,000 a year, according to a Meta representative on the panel who called the site selection a response to a region "starved for opportunity." Host David Sacks noted, without independent sourcing given on the show, that data centers poll at roughly -80 nationally — a claim attributed to him, not verified here.

Asked whether the community started out hostile, the superintendent said the initial reaction was uncertainty rather than opposition, since there was no local precedent for a project this size. She then described Meta's ongoing outreach: the goal isn't necessarily reaching the most informed resident, but the least informed one, with a steady drumbeat of positive messaging about the parish's benefits.

A Meta representative on the panel framed the deal-making itself as collaborative rather than adversarial, and noted Louisiana's governor recently signed an executive order creating a state framework for negotiating with "large load users" — the utility-industry term for high-demand electricity customers like data centers — giving the state more leverage in choosing which projects to approve.

Heard on All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg — Meta's Dina Powell McCormick: The Case for Data Centers, Backlash, AI Job Boom & Meta's Future (2026-09-17).