Ellen Thomas

Senior Reporter

Ellen Thomas was an investigative reporter on Business Insider's technology desk. Her recent work focused on the data center construction boom, energy, and the economy.

"The True Cost of Data Centers" series won the 2025 George Polk Award for Environmental Reporting and a Best in Business honorable mention from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW). Her investigation on Amazon data centers in Virginia was honored in 2024 by the National Association of Real Estate Editors.

Occasionally, public records searches lead her to work off-beat. Recent coverage includes Floyd Mayweather's financial troubles and ICE's $1 billion in warehouse purchases under former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

Before joining Business Insider, Ellen spent five years covering retail and the beauty industry for WWD.

Selected stories:

Data centers

Amazon built a data center empire in Northern Virginia. It's using as much energy as a major city.

Data centers have become an economic powerhouse. Now they're throwing their weight around in Virginia politics.

SCOOP: An on-site natural gas plant will power Stargate's first data center in Texas

In the biggest market for data centers, Big Tech flashes cash and influence

Oracle got big tax breaks in Texas. Now its going back for more.

ICE

Here's where ICE is spending big to turn warehouses into detention centers

Floyd Mayweather

IRS seeks $7.3 million from Floyd Mayweather

Floyd Mayweather accused in lawsuits of owing millions for luxury watches, gold, and rent on palatial apartment

Money to blow: Inside Floyd Mayweather's lavish, debt-filled post-boxing life

Floyd Mayweather's fitness business is on the ropes. Gym owners are punching back.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. bragged about a $400 million property deal. There's just one problem.

Salesforce

SCOOP: Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield to exit in January

Leaked document lays out Salesforce plan to hit 30% margins

Benioff v. Benioff: Inside 18 Difficult Months at Salesforce

Retail

Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion. Now, insiders — and even its own CEO — are calling the acquisition a failure.

Lady Gaga's Haus Beauty launch on Amazon bombed and triggered a 'mass exodus' of talent. Now its pinning its hopes on a rebrand and Sephora debut.

How a German princess and political journalist and with a powerful royal social network became the CEO of the Kardashian beauty brands

Data Centers

Data centers have a bigger NIMBY problem than nuclear reactors, a new poll shows

More Americans would rather see a nuclear energy plant built in their neighborhood than a data center, new polling shows.

2 min read

Exclusive

Kevin O'Leary says his huge data center will create 10,000 construction jobs. We looked at the numbers.

The 'Shark Tank' investor says his Utah data center will create 10,000 construction jobs. The project faces opposition due to environmental concerns.

3 min read

Data Centers

WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA - MAY 16: In an aerial view, high voltage power lines run along the electrical power grid on May 16, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. The grid is strained by increasing demand from electricity-hungry data centers and electric vehicles, disruptions due to severe weather events, and more. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently issued a sweeping reform to transmission grid planning in an effort to improve the nation's aging power grid.

A major watchdog says data centers are wreaking havoc on North America's power grid

The top North American grid watchdog warns that AI data centers threaten grid stability with power swings, calling for action to prevent outages.

2 min read

2026-05-07T09:00:01.235Z

Local data center opposition claims its latest victim: Oracle's Project Jupiter gas plant

Oracle cancels a New Mexico natural gas plant for its Project Jupiter data center site amid community concerns.

5 min read

2026-04-30T09:00:02.569Z

A $16 billion OpenAI and Oracle data center could decide whether Michigan power bills go up or stay put

Oracle and OpenAI's Michigan data center could generate $300 million annually in savings, DTE Energy says, impacting electricity rates.

4 min read

2026-04-29T23:13:42.303Z

One chart reveals how Big Tech is spending up to $725 billion in an AI arms race

Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta are ramping up AI spending to record levels this year.

4 min read

Data Centers

A fiber technician pulls cable at a data center.

This blue-collar trade no one is talking about could help you land a fast-growing AI job

The AI boom needs nearly 200,000 fiber techs. Companies like Meta launched training programs to fill this gap in data center development.

3 min read

Data Centers

Big Tech's AI data centers are pushing the power grid to its limits — and one state is feeling it the most

The Texas power grid faces unprecedented demand surge driven by data centers, with projections showing demand could quadruple by 2032.

2 min read

Data Centers

A talent CEO says data centers are a 'massive opportunity' for office workers to pivot mid-career

Broadstaff CEO Carrie Charles urges tech workers to pursue data center jobs, as demand rises with AI expansion.

5 min read

Data Centers

The Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. Stargate is a collaboration of OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, with promotional support from President Donald Trump, to build data centers and other infrastructure for artificial intelligence throughout the US.

Maine is poised to ban new data centers. These 11 other states tried and failed.

Maine's AI data center moratorium bill could halt construction until 2027. 11 other states tried to address concerns over AI infrastructure growth.

7 min read

2026-04-15T09:00:09.022Z

Utilities are spending $1.4 trillion to power the AI boom, and it's hiking up electric bills

AI's power needs drive $1.4 trillion utility investment by 2030, with utility companies Duke, Southern, and AEP spending big on infrastructure.

2 min read

Data Centers

The Midwest's rise to America's second-biggest data center hub is fueled by these key states

Power availability drives data center shift to Texas and Midwest. Tech companies have been expanding in Wisconsin, Indiana, and more.

2 min read

2026-04-09T20:44:55.535Z

Meet the ICE contractor pivoting from detention facilities to 'man camps' for data center construction workers

Target Hospitality made a $550M deal for housing 4,000 Texas data center. It's one of many companies outside tech benefiting from the AI boom.

3 min read

2026-04-09T15:09:38.112Z

Floyd Mayweather sitting at a basketball game

IRS seeks $7.3 million from Floyd Mayweather

The agency filed a lien against the boxer, who is embarking on a lucrative comeback.

3 min read

2026-04-03T09:21:01.253Z

A warehouse with a private property sign

Here's where ICE is spending big on warehouses to turn into detention centers

ICE is snapping up real estate in a push to streamline its mass deportation efforts.

4 min read

Data Centers

Tech billionaires want to put data centers in space. The math could get ugly fast.

Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are advocating for space data centers to scale AI. Scientists say it can get expensive fast.

4 min read

Data Centers

Oracle tells investors not to worry about data center spending because its 'very, very good' at cost-cutting

As the cloud giant spends billions on the AI race, it reassures investors that it is still "very good" at doing things on the cheap.

2 min read

Data Centers

Trump giving his State of the Union speech.

Trump wants Big Tech to build its own power plants. That's already starting to happen.

President Donald Trump urged tech giants to create their own power sources for data centers. Big Tech is already shifting to private energy solutions.

5 min read

2026-02-19T10:00:03.673Z

Google executives meet with officials at a Google data center in Midlothian, Texas.

This US state could be the new data center capital of the world by 2030

Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are driving a data center boom in Texas, challenging Virginia's dominance as the top market by 2030.

3 min read

Data Centers

A New Gilded Age: Big Tech goes on a $600 billion AI spending splurge

Big Tech's capital expenditures soar with Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft at the forefront, ushering a new era of AI infrastructure spending.

4 min read

Ellen Thomas

Articles by Ellen Thomas