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Fort Meade data center company donates to Byron Donalds' campaign
The developer seeking to build a “hyperscale” data center in Fort Meade has made what appears to be its first political donation in Florida.
Fort Meade LLC, the entity associated with Stonebridge, a Maryland company, made a $10,000 contribution on June 30 to Friends of Byron Donalds, the political committee of the Republican candidate for Florida governor. A search of state election records found no other contributions made by Fort Meade LLC.
Some other Republican candidates have called for a moratorium on the building of data centers, as has the leading Democratic candidate, David Jolly. Donalds said early in the campaign that Florida should become a leader in the technology industry by advancing expansion of data centers, the USA Today network reported.
More recently, Donalds ran a campaign ad stating, “In my Florida, if you don’t protect our pocketbooks and our people, you won’t build data centers. Period.”
The Donalds campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the contribution from Fort Meade LLC. An executive with Stonebridge also did not respond to a request.