Musk’s xAI faces threat of NAACP lawsuit over pollution in Mississippi
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Elon Musk’s xAI, which merged with SpaceX last week, is facing growing pressure from environmental and civil rights groups over pollution concerns, this time at the company’s facility in Southaven, Mississippi.
On Friday, the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice, on behalf of the NAACP, sent a notice of intent to sue xAI and its subsidiary MZ Tech LLC, saying the company’s use of dozens of natural gas-fired turbines requires a federal permit, violates the Clean Air Act and harms nearby communities.
Pollution from turbines that xAI also uses for its Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers in Memphis, Tennessee, has been a major source of local contention for more than a year.
Plans have been made for a third data center in Southaven, about 20 miles from Memphis. announced Earlier this year, when Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said he expected the project to create “hundreds of permanent jobs throughout DeSoto County.”
Launched by Musk in 2023, xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google in the emerging productive AI market. Musk said on Feb. 2 that rocket maker and defense contractor SpaceX was acquiring xAI in a deal that values the combined entity at $1.25 trillion.
Musk is banking on Memphis and the surrounding area as the basis for his AI ambitions, disregarding environmental rules to develop as quickly as possible. Musk’s social network X (formerly Twitter) is owned by xAI, which also created the Grok AI chatbot and image generator.
XAI is currently under multiple government investigations in Europe, Asia and the US after Grok enabled users to easily create and share deepfake porn, including explicit images depicting child sexual abuse.
Last year, residents of the majority-Black community of Boxtown in South Memphis testified at public hearings about the odor in the air and the impact on their health of worsening smog caused by xAI’s use of natural gas turbines. Research by scientists at the University of Tennessee also found He noted that xAI’s use of turbines contributes to air pollution problems in the region.
Environmental advocates, including the NAACP, have previously said they would sue to stop xAI’s unauthorized use of turbines in Memphis. But they stopped short of filing a legal complaint after the Shelby County health department agreed to allow xAI to treat the turbines as temporary, off-highway engines and authorized their use.
The EPA recently clarified the gray areas of the law at the federal level and said these turbines cannot be classified as temporary off-road engines. However, xAI is using turbines across state lines without obtaining federal permits.
XAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Noise pollution from turbines has also been a source. local wonder. Southaven resident Jason Haley told CNBC that the turbines make headache-inducing noises that he can hear inside his home at any time of day.
Part of a group called Haley Safe and Sound documenting decibel levels and pressuring local officials to stop xAI from making so much noise with its turbines, especially at night.
Mississippi officials will hold a public hearing. planned Tuesday for community members who wanted to voice concerns about xAI’s expansion plans in the region. The hearing will focus on whether the state should grant xAI a permit to install and operate 41 permanent turbines at its Southaven, Mississippi, facility. previously reported.
Similar community dynamics are playing out across the U.S. as tech giants rush to build massive data centers that could strain local energy and water supplies and send prices soaring.
in November, Microsoft ended its efforts to build a data center in Wisconsin due to vocal opposition from the community. Amazon It also withdrew plans to build a data center in Arizona following community protests.
Regarding Musk’s Southaven project, Patrick Anderson, a senior lawyer at SELC, said xAI “must comply with the law just like any other company.”
“And when it ignores the Clean Air Act’s basic protections against unauthorized emissions, it puts the health and well-being of ordinary citizens at risk,” Anderson said in an email. “So we plan to hold xAI accountable here.”
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Read the environmental groups’ notice of intent to sue xAI here:
