CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Elon Musk and his artificial intelligence company, xAI, are poisoning Black communities in Tennessee and Mississippi, just to make more money, according to a petition launched at the NAACP’s 116th convention here this week.
A giant data center built in Memphis by xAI is the latest technological development in a history of environmental devastation to Black communities. But the NAACP is not falling for the “illusion of helping” narrative that xAI has presented to thwart a lawsuit over air pollution in Memphis. Instead, the organization is continuing the fightback against environmental racism and unjust health outcomes for Black communities.
For an entire year, xAI illegally operated 35 commercial gas turbines in Memphis without any permits. AI technology requires a great deal of electricity. At the Memphis xAI data center, gas turbines are used to fulfil the energy needs. However, these turbines also generate air pollution. It wasn’t until the NAACP filed its intent to sue that the company took serious steps to acquire any permits at all.
The struggle for environmental and health justice is not new to the South Memphis community. That community’s population already had four times the cancer rates of other areas across the country even prior to the construction of the new data center. Abre’ Connor, Director of Environmental and Climate Justice of the NAACP, also pointed out that the community recently won a campaign “because of the civil rights implications of a pipeline in the same community.”
“Given the rate and how data centers are popping up in different communities across the country, we see this as a new frontier,” she said, emphasizing that it is essential to hold both companies and local agencies accountable, particularly given that she feels Trump’s EPA “has been completely silent.”
The federal Clean Air Act requires that 60-day notice be given before a lawsuit. On the panel “Environmental Injustice: Litigation relating to Air and Soil Quality in Marginalized Neighborhoods” at the NAACP convention, Connor explained that the purpose of the notice requirement is to provide an opportunity for environmental issues to be resolved before going to trial. However, in the case of xAI’s pollution, Musk used the 60 days as an opportunity to “create an illusion of helping the community.”
xAI has now acquired permits for less than half of their commercial gas turbines, and claims that they will disable the rest until they have permits but then will reinstate them. The NAACP sees through the facade that xAI is putting forth in attempts to fool a community that has been harmed by unpermitted pollution for over a year, and the civil rights organization will not be dropping their lawsuit, according to Connor. She highlighted: “We have not removed our intent to sue because they also have been operating for an entire year without a permit.” She did note that the removal of a portion of the unpermitted gas turbines “was so important to the community to ensure that they actually see transparency,” and that going forward “these permits allow for the community to actually understand what is actually happening.”
The NAACP is also calling out the commissioners of the city’s utility, Memphis Gas, Light, and Water, the Chamber of Commerce, and the city and county mayors for failing to protect the community. Had local authorities been acting in the interest of their communities, permits would have been demanded earlier, and community members would have been officially alerted of the processing center’s construction, Connor said. “Instead, the community found out that this was operating just by seeing it.” She criticized the Memphis Health Department for reporting that they “weren’t sure whether or not the gas turbines actually created a public health issue.”
History of corporate betrayal
The factory facility that xAI acquired to build its Colossus supercomputer was abandoned by home appliance company Electrolux in 2022, leaving its 530 Memphis employees jobless. Six years earlier, in 2016, Memphis and Tennessee officials had offered Electrolux $188 million in incentives to boost the local economy. State and local officials claimed to be disappointed. U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., whose Congressional District covers Memphis, remarked in a statement at the time that “the company’s abandonment of Memphis will mean potential financial hardship for its employees and suppliers, and should result in more careful review of promises made by corporations about local job creation in the future.”
Nevertheless, in response to news of xAI’s acquisition of the factory, Cohen reprised his corporate booster role, claiming that Musk’s “smart decision to locate his supercomputer in Memphis will be a boon to our growing tech industry, attract new businesses and create good jobs.” In the shadow of Musk’s volatile political record, his union-busting tactics across his companies, and his disregard for the health of South Memphis residents, the benefit of this decision has yet to be proven.
The NAACP’s petition, titled “The Dirty Truth of AI,” encourages individuals to email their members of Congress and call on them to hold Musk’s xAI data center accountable, as they put the health, safety, and rights of Black communities at risk. The petition points out that xAI is already seeking to build a second data center to expand Colossus in Memphis. The new data center would make use of a natural gas plant just 14 miles south of the city in Southaven, Miss. Musk himself reported on the power requirements of this new data center in a February 2025 xAI broadcast about the launch of their AI model Grok 3: “We’ve already started work on the next cluster which will be about five times the power.”
Southaven, a city whose Black population increased from 7% to 37% of the total from 2000 to 2020, is already subject to emissions from the plant. xAI’s current power usage likely stands at a significant fraction of the 422 megawatts as reported by the Southern Environmental Law Center. The Center is suing xAI on behalf of the NAACP and South Memphis activists. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) reports Southaven’s summer power generation capacity at 820 megawatts—enough to power the 469,000 homes connected to its grid.
Should xAI realize its vision of “five times the power” for a complete Colossus hooked into the TVA grid, its final power usage would outstrip Southaven’s power generation capacity by 680 megawatts. This additional power for xAI will be diverted from what could otherwise be used to power an additional 389,000 thousand homes or sustain power usage for air conditioning in case of heat waves like one that occurred in Memphis as recently as last month.
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