Seems like Oracle didn't have anything in writing. Looks more like a risk of doing business and over promising.

Yeah I'm thinking Oracle never really got the building permit but just assumed it would go ahead.

I mean if you're loaning Oracle the money for this construction I think it's on you as much as it is on them to make sure they got it in writing.

If I contract with a construction company to build a house, and they can’t get permits because the local government turned anti-housing, would that be force majeure and allow the construction company to get out of the contract without big penalties? (Actual question here, not rhetorical.)

This is closer to you got a permit and then it got revoked for no reason under your control.

Except without the "getting the permit" part. A promise of a permit is not a permit. Try filing one at city hall and see how it goes.

It's not that simple though.

It's not like you get the permit before you have even bought the land and designed the plans/architecture/engineering for the data center.

You have to do all of that first, and only once all of that is done, can you submit for a permit.

Which can take not just months, but maybe even a year (or more).

So the situation is, regulation changed during the planning phase. So what do you do now? You obviously can't deliver on a contract that would cause you to break new laws/regulations - that didn't exist when you started all of this.

The laws did not changed. It is an important detail here.

But, laws changed is typically not "force majeure". It is just a business risk.