Elon Musk’s xAI, which merged with SpaceX last week, is facing increased 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 subsidiary MZ Tech LLC, saying the company’s use of dozens of natural gas-burning turbines requires a federal permit, violates the Clean Air Act and harms nearby communities.
Pollution from the turbines, which xAI has also used in Memphis, Tennessee, for its Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers, has been a major source of local contention for more than a year.
Plans for a third data center in Southaven, located about 20 miles from Memphis, were announced early this year, when Mississippi Republican Governor Tate Reeves said he expected the project to create “hundreds of permanent jobs throughout DeSoto County.”
Launched by Musk in 2023, xAI is trying to compete with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google
