Oracle verklagt die Regulierungsbehörden von Wisconsin wegen finanzieller Anforderungen für Rechenzentren
Oracle sues Wisconsin utility regulators over financial requirements for data centers
Oracle verklagt die Regulierungsbehörden von Wisconsin wegen finanzieller Anforderungen für Rechenzentren
Oracle sues Wisconsin utility regulators over financial requirements for data centers
31 Kommentare
Seems reasonable that the utility would need this to protect if oracle pulls out and Wisconsin rate payers are left holding the bag.
After all this mess I hope the Ellisons and all these elite fucks who are buying a government right now end up in jail. We need major reform to regulate these corporations and stop them from buying more freedoms and rights than citizens get
Oracle is a piece of shit company.
>Orcale Sues
Why is this news? That is Oricale’s default option.
https://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/2mgwm6/tech_company_organizational_chart/
They want to socialize the cost while privatizing the profits.
Oh, what’s that? Actually shouldering the full cost of your projects makes them unfeasible? That’s so weird, almost like you were expecting the public to subsidize your experiment and leave them holding the bag when the music stops.
Fuck Ellison and Oracle. Letters of credit aren’t worth wiping your arse with.
Larry Ellison should be in prison.
Of course they are😡
Maybe Larry Ellison can float the cost out of his hundreds of billions. Literally no one gives a hoot about this guy or his business having to pay some extra scratch to build a data center.
Agreed, that we have to pay more because a high usage consumer, whether a data center or an Amazon warehouse, increases demand is just one more way the corporations socialize cost while privatizing profit.
I’m positive that any costs will be pushed down the line to the average person.
Pfft. With the special purchase vehicles Oracle is using to offset the balance sheets, anyone with half a brain cell would require guarantees.
If you are reading the 8-ks and 10-qs there is a theme emerging: the B-series and the VR-series are going to be dumped on the public markets and utilities by strategic bankruptcies. Just look for TopCo and the BidCo as subsidiaries.
Tech giant Oracle is suing the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin over financial requirements for data centers as work is underway on its $15 billion campus in Port Washington.
The tech giant’s subsidiary [filed the lawsuit](https://www.wpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026CV256.pdf) Friday in Ozaukee County Circuit Court. Milwaukee-based utility We Energies, Vantage Data Centers and Cloverleaf Infrastructure are separately asking the PSC to revisit financial requirements regulators approved in April to protect ratepayers.
Oracle is asking a judge to reverse the commission’s financial provisions and order the PSC to approve financial support requirements proposed by We Energies. Oracle’s subsidiary said it could spend more than $100 million each year under the decision by utility regulators.
“The Commission’s modifications to Wisconsin Electric’s proposed Financial Support Requirements will create harmful and unintended consequences that will force significant investment outside of Wisconsin. The cost of posting the required security will deter investment in the state from many firms, who will likely pursue opportunities in other jurisdictions,” the [filing ](https://www.wpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026CV256.pdf)states.
A PSC spokesperson said the commission doesn’t comment on pending litigation, and each commissioner is reviewing the [petition](https://apps.psc.wi.gov/ERF/ERFview/viewdoc.aspx?docid=593736) filed by We Energies and others.
Oracle said it would hold off on court proceedings if Wisconsin utility regulators revisit the decision.
The PSC approved the utility’s proposed “very large customer” rate in April, but it removed the ability of We Energies to waive financial support requirements and strengthened them. The PSC required an A- credit rating from [Standard & Poor’s](https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/5-382-3832?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true) or A3 rating from [Moody’s](https://www.moodys.com/sites/products/ProductAttachments/Moodys%20Rating%20Symbols%20and%20Definitions.pdf), which considers companies at low risk of default.
Oracle currently has a [BBB credit rating](https://www.fitchratings.com/research/corporate-finance/fitch-affirms-oracle-idr-at-bbb-outlook-stable-13-10-2025), which is an investment-grade rating below the PSC requirement. Under the changes, Oracle’s subsidiary would be required to post a letter of credit or cash deposit at what it called a “substantial and unreasonable” cost.
Julia Robin, vice president of infrastructure capacity and sourcing for Oracle, said only a handful of companies worldwide could meet the requirements in an [affidavit](https://www.wpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Oracle-Testimony.pdf) submitted in support of We Energies’ petition.
“The Commission’s decision imposes one of the most stringent—if not the most stringent—credit support requirements I have seen,” Robin said. “Even tariffs that regulators recently approved in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio do not impose inflexible mandates for customers to post cash deposits or letters of credit equivalent to the net book value of generation assets built to serve them.”
The Citizens Utility Board said in a [filing ](https://apps.psc.wi.gov/ERF/ERFview/viewdoc.aspx?docid=594405)to the commission that tightening the financial security requirement was a “reasonable approach” to protect customers, saying commissions in Ohio and Indiana have adopted an A- credit rating.
Tom Content, CUB’s executive director, highlighted fears of an AI bubble as companies invest trillions of dollars to develop data centers. He pointed to [testimony ](https://apps.psc.wi.gov/ERF/ERFview/viewdoc.aspx?docid=594408)filed by one of its experts that highlighted a [Vanderbilt University paper](https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-content/uploads/sites/412/2026/03/23144242/After-the-AI-Crash.pdf) that underscored Oracle’s [high debt load](https://www.reuters.com/technology/oracle-beats-fourth-quarter-revenue-estimates-2026-06-10/) and credit rating just above junk status.
“If a company is running short on cash, that’s going to be the one of the hardest times for them to do more borrowing, and so that’s why we wanted a sign of somewhat stronger financial strength than what was being proposed,” Content said.
CUB’s expert also noted that the failed energy and commodities firm Enron had an investment-grade rating four days before the company filed for bankruptcy protection.
Oracle has said the company is willing to post a letter of credit of $700 million or 10 percent of the PSC’s financial requirement. The company is partnering to build its massive multi-billion-dollar Lighthouse campus in Port Washington.
We Energies has previously said the commission’s changes would “add significant costs and remove flexibility” and its rate was designed so data centers pay the full cost of infrastructure to serve them.
Environmental group Clean Wisconsin recently urged regulators to [reject the petition](https://www.cleanwisconsin.org/clean-wisconsin-calls-on-psc-to-reject-appeal-that-would-reopen-data-center-tariff-case/) filed by We Energies and others to reopen its data center rate case. Amy Barrilleaux, the group’s communications director, said the PSC acted well within its authority to impose collateral and credit rating requirements on tech companies.
“This helps shield all those other customers from the risks associated with these enormous energy users,” Barrilleaux said. “We Energies says it’s going to double its electricity generation capacity in just the next five years as AI data centers come online. That is something unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”
Oracle argues the PSC did not have substantial evidence to support its decision and acted outside authority granted by the Legislature. The company said regulators misinterpreted the law and unlawfully exercised their discretion.
*Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2026, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.*
Data centers have to be paid for and by their own companies. Citizens should donate nothing from their bills or services so some oligarchs can enrich themselves further for free. Oracle can find somewhere else. Please don’t embarrass yourselves by being billionaire beggars. Try privatizing the losses and socializing the profits for once.
This is one to watch
My town signed a deal with a Oracle/OpenAI before most of us knew it was happening. I want to tell you what that actually feels like. I help organize with a local group. Happy to share what we have learned.
I live in Port Washington, Wisconsin. Small city on the shores of Lake Michigan. I’ve lived here for a long time. It’s historic, beautiful, and quaint.
About a year and a half ago, we got wind that a data center was coming to town. At the time, most of us didn’t realize what that meant. It sounded rather benign. Over the next six to eight months, more details came to light and more people started waking up. People were outraged. Women were removed and arrested at a council meeting for speaking out against it and yelling “recall” as she walked back to her seat.
Development agreements were negotiated in closed session. Thousands of acres of farmland were purchased and annexed. A PR firm was hired before residents even knew what was happening, to help with the rollout. Most of it moved forward with limited notice and no published study on what it would do to our water, our power, or our air.
The city wanted to give the developer more than $450 million in tax increment financing.
So we petitioned. We showed up to meetings, read the documents, and asked hard questions. We were met with blank stares. We are nurses and teachers and retirees and parents. Most of us had never organized anything in our lives. We wanted answers and not just talking points. We were painted as outsiders in our own community. We taught ourselves how TIF districts work, how zoning and ordinances work, how air permits work, because nobody was going to do it for us. We turned in our petition before the council voted on the TIF. They could have stopped. They had every chance to stop.They approved it anyway.
I am not anti-technology. I am not even reflexively anti-data-center. What got me was being told, in effect, that none of it mattered. That a project this big, with this much public money and this much impact on our water, our power, and our tax base, was going to happen whether the residents wanted it or not. No transparency, no accountability, no protections, no community benefits agreement, a state legislature that failed to do anything to protect us. Just the promise of free car washes (this is joke, they offer free car washes to appease residents during construction).
What it actually feels like is being talked past. You do everything right. You participate exactly the way you are supposed to. And the decision lands exactly where it was always going to land.
I am posting this here because the people in this sub understand the technology and the companies behind it better than almost anyone. You know what these buildings need. The power. The water. The diesel backup. You know who is behind them.
We ended up in Politico. We passed the first ballot initiative in the country tied to data centers. None of that is what we wanted.. we really just wanted a say in what was happening in our community.
If a town that fought this hard still ended up here, it can happen in your town too. I am not asking for anything. I just wanted you to hear it from someone living it.
There is a silver lining, and I think this is true from most data centers fights across the country. This fight did not split us along the lines everyone assumes. They tried to make it political. They tried to blame China. The people standing next to me at those meetings were Republicans and Democrats, farmers and teachers, lifelong locals and newcomers. People who would not agree on a single thing on a ballot agreed on this. We did not ask each other who we voted for and it really stopped mattering. We were neighbors with a shared problem, and we worked together.
I have watched a lot of people lose faith that ordinary citizens can still move anything. Frequently, this does feel true. I had started to lose it too. But the thing pulling communities together is the threat to the place we live, and a refusal to be talked past.
That is the part worth holding onto. Whatever else this becomes, our town got steamrolled, but it reminded a divided town that we can still stand in a room together and fight for something. Is it crazy to think that maybe data centers can save democracy?
If you read to the end of this. Thank you. Feeling heard means a lot.
Every single city, county, and state government should have sovereign wealth funds that take the top 5% of taxpayers tax revenue per year and put it into the fund. It would be like a windfall fund. Structure it exactly like Norway’s.
It would entirely disincentive elected officials from going after stuff like this.
Capitalist oligarchs think the rules and financial obligations don’t apply to them.
Unfortunately, in America, they’re correct.
If I want to build a hotel…. I pay for it. Not the community. If there is no power or water the county and city done approve the plans. If it causes traffic or any other hardship to the community it does not get build. The rules should be the same for data centers. It’s a business
I’m not sure I understand their main argument? “if we have to pay what is required by law we may not invest as much in this state”(paraphrase). How would they have standing to make that argument?
And “Our credit is subpar but we want the risk to fall on the taxpayers because it’s too burdensome for us”(paraphrase) How is that a legal argument?
There’s a real chance Oracle implodes from this mindless hyperscale building spree. They’re sub-investment grade for good reason. Wisconsin absolutely should protect its own constituents.
One Rich Guy Called Larry Ellison
Oh, look billionaires trying to fuck up every day people again
Ah yes corporations (shareholders) sue city representatives (the public). Because these are both somehow equal groups
They are having a bitch fit because they can’t use as much tax payer money as they wanted .
Oracles credit rating is garbage. In a world where the government actually prioritized it’s constituents they would be laughed out of court.
Oracle needs money to pay for Warner Brothers
I lack the vocabulary to say how many ways in which anybody with the name Ellison can fuck off.
Fuck Oracle and Larry Ellison
Lol late stages capitalism, I can’t afford this so I need the government to subsidies or else I’ll sue for those subsidies.