An Open Letter to Elon Musk

Dear Elon,

I’ve spent decades pouring sweat, pride and hope into this city on Lake Superior. I’ve stood on wind-whipped docks watching ships load iron ore that built half of America’s skyline — and I’ve stood in local high school gyms, cheering on kids chasing dreams under rafters older than both of us. This town has grit and heart that doesn’t quit. That’s exactly why I’m writing you today.

Because I see it clear as Superior on a calm day: Duluth, Minnesota is the smartest, most resilient, most cost-effective place on the continent for your next hyperscale AI and data campus. Not someday. Right now.

It just makes so much sense — on pure physics and economics alone

Picture a build here:

60 to 120+ megawatts of critical IT load, ramping over a decade. That’s your planet-scale training clusters and inference platforms — the neural lifeblood of self-driving, Mars trajectory modeling, generative systems that’ll rewrite industries. Normally, that means staggering HVAC bills. But here? 7 to 9 months of direct free-air cooling. No expensive mechanical chilling, no power-slurping compressors running 24/7.

When your outside ambient is 40°F on average, with long shoulders dipping well under, your data center PUE nosedives. Compared to Phoenix or Austin, your HVAC line item shrinks by $20 to $35 million annually at scale. Over a 20-year operating window? That’s nearly a billion dollars — and that’s before talking tax structure or incentives.

Then add in Lake Superior. With closed-loop glycol or alternative secondary systems, you can dump residual heat into a 39°F year-round thermal sink the size of South Carolina. No direct draws, no returning warm flows, no complicated EPA entanglements. Just steady, quiet, bulletproof cooling that lets your next-gen racks breathe easy.

Your power is cleaner, cheaper, more secure — with a whole region ready to back you

Northern Minnesota’s grid is increasingly heavy with Iron Range wind and Manitoba hydro. That means you’re drawing some of the cleanest big-grid electrons on Earth. Local utilities would fight to sign 20-year renewable-heavy PPAs that keep your ESG optics spotless and your long-run rates rock stable. You might pay 15–25% less per kWh than major metros, all while telling the world your massive compute footprint is anchored in sustainable power.

And because your load helps underwrite more wind installations, you literally accelerate the clean-energy transition for an entire multi-state region. It’s the ultimate flywheel.

The dollars only get better — direct carrots from every direction

A hyperscale facility here would unlock:

• $25–50 million in capital offsets day one, from layered Minnesota DEED site grants, Port Authority TIF overlays, workforce program subsidies, plus likely IRA/CHIPS carve-outs for green, high-tech infrastructure.
• Construction wages 15–20% under Chicago or Seattle, because this is still a low-cost-of-living blue-collar town. Our people take pride in a job done right — not in bleeding your ledger dry.
• Underutilized industrial plots near the port that can be leased long-term for ~30% below typical Midwest industrial land costs, with heavy-haul roads, rail access, and robust soil loads already proven by a century of ore and timber handling.

This means your cost to build is dramatically less — and your time-to-groundbreaking is faster. Here, permitting moves. You can call the same people year after year. No revolving agency doors, no endless desk hopping. Just a handshake, a nod, and ground crews rolling in.

Best of all: we have a willing and able workforce, eager to build and stay

That might be the biggest carrot. Duluth’s people aren’t burned out on megaprojects. They’re hungry. Our ironworkers, sparkies, pipefitters and riggers have built everything from blast furnaces to personal jet plants to complex mining concentrators. Local colleges churn out welders, network techs, and HVAC specialists who’d love nothing more than to raise kids right here, send them into our youth hockey leagues, and keep your facilities humming for decades.

We can field 3,000+ trades immediately. No expensive fly-ins, no hotel bills stacking like cordwood. Just skilled, union-stamped labor that finishes on time and under spec.

Want it to be more than racks? Make it your engineering testbed.

Duluth’s the perfect sandbox for your off-book genius experiments. Want to pilot direct wind-to-HPC microgrids? Try novel battery chemistries that need stable cool ambient temps? Prototype closed-loop lake-assisted liquid cooling that halves compressor hours? You’ll find local regulators who will work with your team, not roadblock them.

And if you want to taste the proof, I’ll set up lunch with the Cirrus Aircraft leadership. They built a global personal jet powerhouse right here in Duluth. They’ll show you exactly why complex global manufacturing thrives in this town — loyal workers, stable freight, cold-climate process advantages, a local economy that’s tough enough to keep showing up even when markets wobble.

Your one-pager in short:

• 60–120+ MW IT campus, $300M+ total build, phased smart.
• 7–9 months of free cooling, saving $20–35M/year.
• Lake Superior closed-loop secondary, eliminating water wars.
• Iron Range wind & Manitoba hydro, PPAs 15–25% below major cities.
• $25–50M direct capital offsets from grants, TIF, federal clean energy carve-outs.
• Local wages & land ~20% under big metros.
• 3,000+ skilled union trades, 150+ permanent tech/ops staff.
• Becomes global case study for sustainable hyperscale compute.

I’ll pick you up myself

So here’s my dead-simple offer. When your jet touches down at Duluth International, forget the convoy. I’ll pick you up myself. We’ll stop by Cirrus, have coffee on the tarmac, then drive down the hill with Lake Superior spilling out in front of us. I’ll show you the same docks that once loaded ore to build your rocket gantries. Then we’ll stand on bedrock ground — stable, cold, cheap, eager — and sketch your next legacy move right there.

Elon, you’ve built your empire on first principles and unflinching physics. Well here it is, plain: cold + clean + stable + skilled + hungry = Duluth.
Let’s build something enormous together — the kind of campus that still runs strong when we’re both long gone.

I’ll see you at arrivals.

With unshakable local pride and a handshake waiting,

Howie

Proud son of Duluth, Minnesota