08/31/2026
$25,000, “GOTTA MAKE IT HAPPEN,” AND THE DEAL BEHIND ODESSA’S MASSIVE AI DATA CENTER
QUICK SUMMARY: It took us four months, an Attorney General ruling and repeated requests to obtain the records showing Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett working behind the scenes to help advance the TCDC data-center project before and after receiving a $25,000 campaign contribution from Zachary Zhou, a major New Era shareholder. The records also reveal private discussions involving permitting, political assistance and changes to important land-development protections held by Grow Odessa. None of this proves wrongdoing — but the timeline raises serious questions about access, influence and transparency.
South of Odessa, the bulldozers are moving.
Texas Critical Data Centers — the massive AI infrastructure campus being developed by New Era Energy & Digital — is no longer merely an announcement or a set of renderings. It’s happening.
But as Ector County residents begin asking more questions about the enormous project, newly released public records are revealing something else: long before most residents understood what was coming, some of Odessa’s most influential public and economic-development figures were already working closely with the developers to make it happen.
At the center of the records is Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett — and a $25,000 campaign contribution from Zachary Zhou, a major shareholder in the company developing the project.
THE $25,000 CONTRIBUTION
Earlier this year, while reviewing Fawcett’s campaign-finance reports, one contribution jumped off the page.
On February 13, 2026, Zachary Zhou gave Dustin Fawcett campaign $25,000.
That is an extraordinary amount of money in an Ector County political race.
We asked Fawcett who Zhou was, what relationship existed between them and why Zhou had made such a large contribution. We didn’t get an explanation.
What we later learned made the contribution more significant.
A federal securities filing signed just four days after the contribution reported that Zhou beneficially owned approximately 9.9% of New Era Energy & Digital, the company developing Texas Critical Data Centers. Weeks later, New Era borrowed $5 million directly from Zhou.
So we filed a Public Information Request seeking Fawcett’s communications concerning New Era, TCDC, Zhou and others involved with the development.
What came back revealed much more than we expected.
FOUR MONTHS TO GET THE RECORDS
We filed our Public Information Request in April.
Ector County asked the Texas Attorney General for permission to withhold portions of the requested records under exceptions involving economic-development negotiations. The Attorney General ultimately ruled in our favor and ordered responsive records released.
More than two weeks later — and after two additional requests for production — we still didn’t have them.
So Monday evening, we headed to Commissioners Court prepared to publicly ask why the records still had not been produced.
What we did not know was that, after we had already left our office for the meeting, the County finally sent them at 5:45 p.m. — just 15 minutes before Commissioners Court began.
When we stood to address the Court, still unaware the records had arrived, Fawcett turned to the County Attorney and Public Information Officer and asked:
“These haven’t been provided?”
We later discovered that they had been — 15 minutes earlier, after four months, after an Attorney General ruling, after two requests for production, and just minutes before we were going to publicly question the County about them.
Now we’ve read those records.
And they show that Fawcett was not simply observing the massive project taking shape south of Odessa. He was helping make it happen.
“GOTTA MAKE IT HAPPEN!”
Months before Zhou made his contribution, Fawcett was already communicating directly with then-New Era CEO Will Gray.
In August 2025, Gray contacted Fawcett about Nebius, a Netherlands-based AI infrastructure company New Era was courting. Gray wanted help approaching the Texas Governor’s Office and potentially obtaining what he described as a “comfort letter” concerning Nebius’s ability to own land in Texas.
Fawcett responded:
“Not a problem. Gotta make it happen!”
Later, when Gray indicated they were not gaining traction with the Governor’s Office, he asked whether State Rep. Brooks Landgraf might have some pull or whether Congressman August Pfluger should become involved.
Fawcett responded:
“Brooks is the best avenue... I’ll also make a call.”
These were not ceremonial exchanges. A private developer encountered issues that could affect an enormous commercial project. Its CEO turned directly to the Ector County Judge for political assistance, and Fawcett offered it.
FAWCETT WAS “IN THE LOOP”
The communications continued.
Gray provided Fawcett with significant project updates involving some of the largest names in technology and energy.
At one point, Gray told Fawcett that New Era was locking down hundreds of megawatts of power. Fawcett responded enthusiastically:
“That’s insane! Over a Gig is big time. When do you announce that?”
Then came Meta.
Gray told Fawcett and Odessa economic-development official Tom Manskey:
“We are in an exclusive agreement with Meta as our end tenant for the 438 acres.”
Gray said Meta had proposed lease terms and added:
“Just wanted to keep you both in the loop.”
That anticipated Meta transaction should not be confused with a publicly announced executed anchor-tenant lease. New Era’s later public disclosures have continued to characterize end-tenant negotiations as ongoing.
But the exchange makes one thing clear: Fawcett was inside the conversation.
THE TIMING OF FEBRUARY 13
By the time Zhou gave the Fawcett campaign $25,000 on February 13, 2026, the Judge’s involvement with TCDC had already been underway for months.
In January, Gray sent Fawcett and Manskey TCDC’s conceptual master plan. The discussion specifically addressed whether permanent development could be built over plugged oil wells so that more computing capacity could fit on the site.
The next morning, Fawcett forwarded those plans to John Henderson, whom County records identify as Ector County’s Commissioners’ Court Attorney/Grant Writer. Henderson appears repeatedly in county matters involving legal, administrative and project-related issues.
Days later, Gray was arranging a lunch involving Fawcett, State Rep. Brooks Landgraf and Bruce McLean of Primary Digital. Fawcett agreed to attend.
Then came February 13.
Zachary Zhou gave the Fawcett campaign $25,000.
And Zhou was not simply someone loosely connected to the project. A federal securities filing signed four days later reported that Zhou beneficially owned approximately 9.9% of New Era Energy & Digital. Weeks later, New Era borrowed $5 million directly from Zhou.
Four days after the contribution, on February 17, the project conversation was still active.
Gray asked whether the TCDC site faced zoning restrictions. Manskey responded:
“I will let the Judge answer that but I’m pretty sure that’s a no!”
The same conversation then directed Gray to Eddie Landrum, Ector County’s Development Services director, with the explanation that Landrum “handles our permits.”
Another issue involved plugged oil wells located within the development area.
Gray explained that New Era had hired consultants to evaluate the wells and wrote that it would be “great if the county allowed this.”
The response coming back through the group was encouraging:
“We haven’t found anything in the County Regulations. We will take a second look tomorrow, but I don’t anticipate there is anything on our end.”
At roughly the same stage of the project, Gray was also telling the group: “Meta binding term sheet should be executed within two weeks!!”
None of this proves that Zhou’s contribution purchased Fawcett’s assistance and in fact, the records establish that Fawcett had been assisting the project before the contribution.
But that is precisely why the timing matters.
The $25,000 did not arrive before Fawcett knew the people involved. It arrived in the middle of an established and active relationship with the developers of a project in which Zhou held a substantial financial interest.
THE GROW ODESSA SIDE OF THE STORY
Fawcett’s involvement is one part of the story. Grow Odessa is another.
Grow Odessa is a private nonprofit economic-development organization. According to Grow Odessa’s own website, it has no formal relationship with the Odessa Development Corporation, but it frequently coordinates economic-development incentives with the ODC, the City of Odessa and Ector County.
Grow Odessa controlled much of the land being assembled for the TCDC project and sold TCDC hundreds of acres for development.
But Grow Odessa did not simply transfer the land and walk away.
The original deeds contained protections intended to ensure that the land would actually be developed. If TCDC failed to meet certain milestones, Grow Odessa retained contractual rights to repurchase the property.
Among those original requirements, TCDC was expected to pursue creation of an Odessa industrial district within a specified period, enter into a definitive power-supply agreement with a customer within nine months, and complete the laying of a permanent data-center foundation within the required period.
The industrial-district requirement deserves a little explanation because it could have significant implications for a project of this size.
Under Texas law, an industrial district can allow property outside a city’s corporate limits to remain outside those limits while the property owner and city negotiate a specific relationship. That can include agreements involving infrastructure, services, payments and other economic-development considerations without necessarily subjecting the property to the entire municipal regulatory framework that would apply if it were annexed into the city.
That could be particularly important for TCDC because one of the largest questions surrounding massive data centers is water.
The City of Odessa has mechanisms for providing water and other utility services to customers outside the city limits. An industrial-district arrangement could therefore potentially provide a framework through which a large project outside the city could negotiate access to city infrastructure while remaining outside Odessa’s corporate limits.
Industrial-district arrangements can also intersect with broader economic-development negotiations and incentives. Odessa and the Odessa Development Corporation (ODC) separately have the ability to enter into economic-development agreements involving grants, infrastructure assistance and other incentives.
None of that means TCDC was automatically entitled to City of Odessa water, economic-development money or any particular regulatory treatment simply because an industrial district was contemplated.
But it does mean that the industrial-district provision in Grow Odessa’s original deed was not merely a technical requirement. It potentially touched several of the biggest issues surrounding the development — city infrastructure, water access, economic-development incentives and the regulatory framework under which a massive industrial project outside Odessa could operate.
The customer-related requirement was also significant. TCDC was required within nine months to enter into a definitive power-supply arrangement involving a customer committed to meaningful payments regardless of actual power usage.
That requirement protected Grow Odessa against a different risk: TCDC controlling hundreds of acres of valuable development property without actually securing a commercially meaningful customer.
Then those protections became the subject of negotiation.
“PLEASE NUDGE CHRIS TERRY”
On March 16, 2026, Gray sent Manskey a request.
He wrote:
“If you can please nudge Chris Terry to respond to our attorneys email about the additional consideration to remove the clawback provisions, it would be greatly appreciated!!”
Manskey responded:
“I will reach out to Chris first thing tomorrow.”
Chris Terry is a local Odessa real-estate attorney.
The released records do not establish whether Terry represented Grow Odessa in the negotiations, represented another party, or what role he played in determining the revised terms. That distinction matters.
What the records do establish is that New Era was seeking changes to the existing repurchase provisions, that its attorney had apparently been communicating with Terry about those changes, and that Gray asked Manskey to help obtain a response.
Gray specifically referred to “additional consideration to remove the clawback provisions.”
Nine days later, the agreements changed.
The formal ex*****on documents also show that Terry notarized Grow Odessa President Jimmy Cox’s signature on the amendments. That does not establish that Terry negotiated the amendments, but it does establish that he was involved at least in their formal ex*****on.
NINE DAYS LATER, THE REPURCHASE PROTECTIONS CHANGED
On March 25, 2026, TCDC and Grow Odessa executed amendments to the deeds. The changes were substantial.
The amendments eliminated important existing repurchase triggers and replaced them with a much narrower construction-related protection. In exchange, TCDC agreed to provide Grow Odessa $4,347,500, consisting of $1 million in cash and a $3,347,500 promissory note.
Among the protections eliminated was the nine-month customer/power-supply trigger. Under the revised arrangement, the principal repurchase protection was instead tied to whether TCDC initiated construction of a first-phase data-center foundation within 24 months.
The industrial-district requirement was also among the original protections removed.
That is potentially significant because the original industrial-district requirement touched more than simply land-use paperwork. It could have provided a framework for negotiating the project’s relationship with the City of Odessa, including infrastructure and potentially utility services such as water, while allowing the property to remain outside the city limits.
Again, removal of the provision does not prove that TCDC had been promised city water, incentives or any particular treatment. But it does raise an important question: why was that requirement no longer considered necessary as part of Grow Odessa’s contractual protections?
The elimination of the customer-related trigger is also notable because the private communications from the same period contain repeated references to prospective transactions involving Meta and other potential customers. Yet TCDC had not publicly announced the executed hyperscale anchor lease the company had repeatedly anticipated.
So the question is not whether Grow Odessa acted improperly. The question is why these protections changed, what information informed that decision, and whether the revised deal adequately protected Grow Odessa’s interests.
A REMARKABLE TIMELINE
The chronology is worth looking at in one place.
In August 2025, New Era asked Fawcett for help with the Governor’s Office. Fawcett responded, “Gotta make it happen!”
By late 2025, Gray was privately telling Fawcett that New Era was in an exclusive arrangement involving Meta and said he wanted to keep Fawcett “in the loop.”
In January 2026, Gray sent Fawcett detailed development plans and sought assistance as the project worked through local development questions.
On February 13, Zachary Zhou gave the Fawcett campaign $25,000. At the time, Zhou was a major New Era shareholder.
On February 17, a federal securities filing reported Zhou as beneficially owning approximately 9.9% of New Era Energy & Digital. That same week, project communications continued around County development and permitting questions.
On March 16, Gray asked Manskey to “nudge Chris Terry” regarding “additional consideration to remove the clawback provisions.”
On March 25, Grow Odessa and TCDC amended the deeds. Important original repurchase protections were removed, and TCDC agreed to provide Grow Odessa $4,347,500.
On March 31, New Era entered into a $5 million loan transaction with Zhou.
Then, on April 20, Fawcett put his position in writing:
“I am fervently in favor of data centers.”
He also wrote:
“We have been working with one such Data Center and Hyperscaler that plans on coming to Ector County...”
Today, they’re moving dirt.
PARTS OF COUNTY GOVERNMENT APPEARED TO KNOW VERY LITTLE
Another notable part of the records is the apparent information gap inside County government.
While New Era’s CEO was providing Fawcett with private updates and seeking assistance, some County personnel appeared to know very little about what was occurring.
On November 13, 2025, Pamela Berry responded to an inquiry:
“No, I do not know anything about it. Maybe Brandon?”
Days later, Development Services Director Eddie Landrum forwarded another inquiry to John Henderson and asked:
“Do you know anything about this?”
Meanwhile, Fawcett was receiving information directly from New Era leadership.
“I AM FERVENTLY IN FAVOR OF DATA CENTERS”
By April 20, 2026, Fawcett’s position was unmistakable.
In an email discussing data-center development, he wrote:
“I am fervently in favor of data centers.”
He argued that communities needed to overcome a “NIMBY” mindset and characterized concerns involving water, electricity, noise and environmental issues as people “buying into scare tactics.”
Perhaps more significant was how he described his relationship to the local project:
“We have been working with one such Data Center and Hyperscaler that plans on coming to Ector County...”
Not “we have been monitoring.”
Not “we have been informed about.”
“We have been working with.”
Those words matter more today because residents are no longer discussing a hypothetical development. They are watching it being built.
NEW ERA’S CONTROVERSIES
There is another piece of context residents should know.
New Era itself has faced significant controversy.
The company was sued in New Mexico over allegations involving legacy oil-and-gas assets and environmental obligations. New Era denied wrongdoing.
In July, a $1 million settlement was approved resolving the claims against New Era and certain related parties without an admission of liability or wrongdoing. According to New Era, several claims against Will Gray individually remained pending.
New Era and certain executives have also faced federal securities litigation involving allegations concerning company statements and development progress. Those allegations remain contested and should not be treated as established facts.
Fawcett himself became aware of at least part of the New Mexico controversy. One text thread contains a news story about the matter, followed by Fawcett asking:
“Does this have any impact on Ector County’s operation?”
The project relationship continued.
WHAT DO THE RECORDS PROVE?
Precision matters here.
The records do not prove that Zachary Zhou’s $25,000 purchased Dustin Fawcett’s assistance.
They do not prove that Fawcett committed a crime.
They do not establish that Grow Odessa acted improperly or illegally by changing its contractual protections.
And the fact that public officials and private economic-development organizations work to attract and facilitate major projects is not, standing alone, evidence of misconduct.
But when elected officials, private developers and influential economic-development organizations are working closely together on a project of this magnitude, transparency matters.
The records raise legitimate questions about access, influence, transparency and how major decisions affecting the future of Ector County were being made.
THE QUESTIONS THAT REMAIN
Who exactly is Zachary Zhou, and why did a major New Era shareholder give Dustin Fawcett's campaign $25,000?
Who solicited the contribution? Did Will Gray or anyone associated with New Era or TCDC know about it? What communications occurred between Zhou and Fawcett before and after February 13?
What exactly was Fawcett doing on TCDC’s behalf, and why were developers able to turn directly to the County Judge for assistance with state political contacts and local development matters?
What was Chris Terry’s role, if any, in the discussions concerning the repurchase provisions?
Who at Grow Odessa authorized the March 25 amendments? What internal approval or board action authorized the changes? How was the $4,347,500 consideration calculated, and what analysis supported the revised terms?
Why did Grow Odessa agree to eliminate the nine-month customer/power-supply trigger?
Why was the requirement to pursue an Odessa industrial district removed, and what discussions had occurred regarding city infrastructure, utilities or economic-development arrangements before that protection was eliminated?
What did Grow Odessa know about TCDC’s actual customer commitments when it agreed to the revised terms?
Those aren’t accusations.
They’re questions created by the records themselves.
“GOTTA MAKE IT HAPPEN”
The debate over AI data centers is only beginning in West Texas.
There will be legitimate arguments about jobs, economic development, electricity, water, infrastructure, taxes and property rights.
But one principle should not be controversial: the public deserves to understand how major projects affecting their community are advanced — and what role elected officials, developers and influential private economic-development organizations play in making them happen.
On February 13, a major shareholder in the company developing this project gave Ector County’s Judge campaign $25,000.
The timing is what makes the contribution notable. The records show Fawcett assisting the project before Zhou’s contribution and continuing to engage with the project afterward. Weeks later, New Era borrowed $5 million directly from Zhou.
At the same time, Grow Odessa was negotiating changes to contractual repurchase protections it originally placed on the project — including protections related to securing a customer and pursuing an industrial district.
Perhaps there are perfectly reasonable explanations for every one of these events.
Then the people involved should provide them.
Because the project is no longer theoretical.
The dirt is moving.
And taxpayers are only now beginning to see what was happening behind the scenes while officials were working to:
“Gotta make it happen.”
