Weldon Hurt

Mayor of Abilene, Texas, and president of Pest Patrol, a locally owned business. Hurt has been a public local voice on Abilene’s role in the Stargate AI data-center project, discussing the city’s culture, the project site, tax impacts, and his support for the development.

Stargate Turns Rocky West Texas Land Into an AI Tax Base

Abilene local leaders Misty Mayo and Weldon Hurt make a pragmatic case for OpenAI’s Stargate project: a hyperscale AI data center can turn low-value rocky land into taxable property that supports infrastructure, schools, and economic diversification. They present the project less as a tech makeover than as an economic-development bet for a West Texas city that was skeptical of the scale and fit, but saw a chance to capture investment that would otherwise go elsewhere.

OpenAIJun 1, 20264 min read