large, new, far out, grid hookups usually get done in units of years, you don't just call the power company and order one. I think a location with an existing connection to the power they need probably takes priority over every other location decision.

> Is extending the grid to their shiny new DC so expensive

Yes.

Source: learned more than I want to about solar farm development.

Anytime you see someone repeatedly doing a bad thing the reason they're doing it is because they want to do it and there are isn't sufficient push-back or consequences for doing it.

Until a country that is defended by nuclear weapons like France decides to send a few jet fighters to force the private jet carrying someone like Musk or Zuckerberg to land so that they can be arrested, tried, and convicted and forced to spend many years to decades inside a little box with little contact with the outside world this kind of stuff will keep happening.

Honestly, the stuff that the oligarchs are doing now is going to seem minor compared to what they'll be doing a decade or two from now if there's no push back.