Elon Musk’s xAI scored a victory in Mississippi, where regulators on Tuesday authorized the artificial intelligence company to build a power plant with 41 natural gas-burning turbines in the town of Southaven to power its nearby data centers.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality “voted to approve the permit” for xAI subsidiary MZX Tech LLC, “after careful consideration of all public comments and community concerns,” MDEQ spokesperson Jan Schaefer told CNBC via email.
The NAACP and other civil rights and environmental advocates tried to get the meeting delayed, arguing that it would conflict with some residents’ efforts to vote in the state’s primary elections, being held on the same day.
“We are outraged that, despite the community’s clear demand to move the Election Day hearing, MDEQ chose to bulldoze through a decision that silenced the very residents most harmed by it,” said Abre’ Conner, director of environmental and climate justice at NAACP, in a statement from his organization and the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Now owned by SpaceX after a merger was announced in February, xAI has been using more than a dozen temporary turbines for months at the facility in Southaven, claiming that no federal permit has been required. The company has two data centers — Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 — in Memphis, Tennessee, just across the Mississippi state line.
