LAS CRUCES — Anyone opening Project Jupiter’s first consolidated annual report posted to the Doña Ana County website Friday might at first be confused to see zero full-time and zero part-time jobs recorded at the data center’s site near Santa Teresa.
But in the document, the director of tax planning at Oracle — whose name is redacted — listed 2,105 construction jobs through June 30, with “a total of 5,969 workers [who] have participated in the construction.” The report also provides information about Oracle’s outreach and recruitment in Sunland Park and Las Cruces, making mention of “three new Oracle Academy Data Center Curricula” that educators are set to embed in their teaching.
County commissioners entered a closed meeting on Sept. 19, 2025, and subsequently agreed to pledge $165 billion worth of industrial revenue bonds for Project Jupiter, an alleged violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act that has led to a set of lawsuits. One of the stipulations attached to the bonds is a “’Doña Ana County First’ hiring strategy to prioritize employing local residents and vendors,” according to the county website.
Legislators, commissioners and community members have pushed to obtain the demographic information of construction workers breaking ground at the site — important numbers for a data center that has pledged economic impact and jobs for locals. This data is missing from the report, and it is unclear if it has been gathered comprehensively.
‘Eight pages of propaganda’
According to an Oracle blog dated July 31, nearly 700 New Mexicans “are helping build the campus” — amounting to around one-third of all construction workers.
Project Jupiter developers have promised to provide demographic data “all along,” county Commissioner Susie Kimble said in an interview Friday.
“We’re not going to let them sugarcoat everything and go, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got plenty of employees,’ ” she said. “We want to know the truth.”
Some local lawmakers also criticized the omission of demographic data.
“To me, this was eight pages of propaganda,” Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, D-Mesilla, said in an interview Friday. “To see numbers in the aggregate without telling us, or offering any character to who those workers are, I don’t think meets the spirit of the Doña Ana hiring preferences.”
Lara Cadena also had concerns about the Oracle tax director’s name being redacted.
“The local government told us, we first have to redact information,” she said. “I thought, ‘What are they possibly redacting in a job report?’ The name of the tax funding officer at a major corporation like this? I don’t see the purpose. I don’t know what they are trying to hide with that.”
And, she had questions about the “Oracle Academy Data Center Curricula.”
“Wait a second, where is Oracle putting a curriculum? Into these public schools down here? I think we definitely need more information on that,” she said.
Oracle and a county spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the report Friday afternoon.
“Given Oracle’s dishonesty and broken promises, I am prepared for the state and for the county to make this as difficult for them as possible,” Rep. Sarah Silva, D-Las Cruces, an early supporter of Project Jupiter who has since changed course, said in an interview Friday.
The first time county commissioners asked for a job report, Kimble said, Oracle responded they would need to “clean it up” and remove social security numbers and any identifying information.
“We don’t want that. We want pure numbers,” Kimble said. “I feel like they have the information. It’s just another example, to me, of them not being forthcoming.”
Lawmakers want ‘actual data’
The state Economic Development Department does not collect demographic information about individuals currently working in construction at the site, department spokesperson Chris Chaffin said Friday.
However, that could change down the line should developers choose to participate in the state’s Job Training Incentive Program, as eligibility hinges on trainees being residents of the state of New Mexico for at least a year, Chaffin added.
Upon visiting the construction site several months ago, Lara Cadena heard from workers and contractors that “they’re going from job to job. They’ll be here for a couple of weeks. They’ll be somewhere else the next time.”
But, “I would be wary of anecdotal data and demand actual data,” Silva said.
As for future hiring, “project staffing will continue to depend on the timing of the NMED air permit,” the report says. The air quality permit is the largest legal roadblock to the data center’s operations — a public hearing that starts Sept. 14 will determine its fate.
Oracle’s report also directs individuals to a “centralized project website with project information that contains links for job postings, vendor inquiries, and questions about Project Jupiter.”
The website, projectjupitertogether.com, urges visitors to “send a comment to NMED” in support of the data center.
“Lots of us have concerns about data centers, and the big promise that’s supposed to be delivered one day is jobs for our people,” Lara Cadena said. “Nothing in this report demonstrates whether that’s happening or what it will look like moving forward.”
