It was 4 a.m. on a Sunday and 46-year-old Jason Haley was once again wide awake. The suburban silence that Haley had grown used to in his two decades as a resident of Southaven, Mississippi, had, for the last few months, been replaced by a constant whirring, like an airplane hovering over his home, he said.The noise keeping Haley awake was coming from a plant powering Elon Musk's xAI data centers in the area, according to a lawsuit filed in June against the company and its subsidiary, MZX Tech. Haley and two other Southaven residents, who live within a mile of the plant, allege in the suit that "near-constant" noise and vibrations are causing negative physical and psychological health effects.The filing comes amid growing resistance toward data center development, with the majority of Americans opposing local construction of a data center, according to a Gallup poll published earlier this year.Similar disputes are playing out across the country, like in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, where a lawsuit this month filed by residents alleges a data center emits "unreasonable and excessive noise" onto residents' properties and in Lowell, Massachusetts, where noise from a data center's cooling center "disrupts neighbors' sleep," according to an April suit.There are more than 4,000 data centers in the U.S., according to a recent United Nations report. To power the data centers, developers are building their own plants, sometimes with little warning to residents like Haley. Haley reached out to Southaven Mayor Darren Musselwhite about the noise in emails he shared with CBS News. In one last November, he urged Musselwhite to drive through the neighborhood "and take a listen to the constant high pitch noises."
Mississippi homeowners blame a noisy data center plant for sleepless nights. The mayor's advice? "Consider selling."
Noise from a Mississippi plant powering Elon Musk's xAI data centers in the area is causing migraines, ringing ears and sleepless nights, residents say.














