Elon musk and the xAI emblem.
Vincent Feuray | Afp | Getty Photographs
Elon Musk’s xAI scored a victory in Mississippi, the place regulators on Tuesday licensed the synthetic intelligence firm to construct an influence plant with 41 pure gas-burning generators within the city of Southaven to energy its close by information facilities.
The Mississippi Division of Environmental High quality (MDEQ) held a board assembly earlier within the day to vote on whether or not to concern the allow. The NAACP and different civil rights and environmental advocates tried to get the assembly delayed, arguing that it will battle with some residents’ efforts to vote within the state’s major elections, being held on the identical day.
“We’re outraged that, regardless of the neighborhood’s clear demand to maneuver the Election Day listening to, MDEQ selected to bulldoze via a call that silenced the very residents most harmed by it,” mentioned Abre’ Conner, director of environmental and local weather justice at NAACP, in a press release from his group and the Southern Environmental Regulation Middle.
The MDEQ did not instantly reply to a request for details about the listening to.
Now owned by SpaceX after a merger was introduced in February, xAI has been utilizing greater than a dozen momentary generators for months on the facility in Southaven, claiming that no federal allow has been required. The corporate has two information facilities — Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 — in Memphis, Tennessee, simply throughout the Mississippi state line.
Staff at Elon Musk’s xAI facility, which homes a big supercomputer often known as Colossus, used for Synthetic Intelligence (AI) information processing, in Memphis, Tennessee, Sept. 11, 2025.
Karen Pulfer Focht | Reuters
As Musk pursues a possible mammoth IPO for SpaceX, which was valued at $1.25 trillion after the merger, he is relying on the realm in and round Memphis to produce the ability and assets essential to construct out the mixed firm’s AI infrastructure.
Along with its effort to construct an influence plant in Southaven, xAI additionally plans to assemble one other massive information heart there, dubbed Macrohardrr, in a warehouse that was beforehand a GXO Logistics facility. Residents in Southaven and Memphis have protested xAI’s plans and operations for months attributable to air and noise air pollution points.
“The allow issued by MDEQ has quite a few critical flaws that violate federal legislation, run afoul of the company’s personal insurance policies, and put households in North Mississippi and Memphis in danger,” The NAACP and the SELC mentioned of their joint assertion on Tuesday.
The NAACP, represented by SELC, plans to sue xAI over the corporate’s prior and ongoing use of pure gas-burning generators with out federal permits.
Opponents argue that xAI understated the quantity of air pollution that can be emitted by its generators in its allow software, with specific issues round smog-forming nitrogen oxides and different pollution that may be dangerous to human well being, together with formaldehyde and airborne particulate matter.
In addition they say xAI failed to have interaction in neighborhood conferences, or to conduct acceptable environmental critiques whereas shirking a accountability to adjust to federal air high quality rules.
Jason Haley, a Southaven resident who noticed Tuesday’s vote, informed CNBC he was dissatisfied despite the fact that the result was anticipated. Haley mentioned he is been battling noise from xAI’s generators and is a part of a neighborhood coalition known as Protected & Sound that is been pushing native politicians to require xAI to regulate the noise ranges.
Coaching and operating AI fashions like Grok, developed by xAI, requires hefty quantities of compute and energy, and rising utility payments have been partly blamed on the large electrical energy consumption of latest information facilities. At a assembly final week with the White Home, execs from tech corporations, together with xAI, signed non-binding pledges to produce their very own energy for his or her amenities.
Patrick Anderson, a senior lawyer at SELC, mentioned in Tuesday’s assertion that regulators are siding with Musk’s enterprise ambitions over the issues of native residents.
“Mississippi state regulators look like extra thinking about fast-tracking xAI’s private energy plant than conducting an intensive evaluation of its impacts and having significant engagement with the households that can be compelled to reside with this soiled facility—and its air pollution—of their communities,” Anderson mentioned.
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