Elon Musk’s xAI Faces Scrutiny From NAACP Over Approved Permit To Build Power Plant In Southaven, MS – AfroTech

The NAACP is concerned about an approved permit that would harm the environment and the health of citizens in Southaven, MS, and surrounding areas.

According to a news release from the NAACP, Southaven could soon be home to Elon Musk’s xAI power plants. The AI company founded by Musk in 2023 is building a “truth-seeking AI chatbot” called Grok, which features “frontier capabilities in conversation, coding, reasoning, and image and video generation,” according to its website.

Per the release, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) issued an air permit that grants Musk’s company permission to operate various polluting methane gas turbines at its facility in Southaven. The permit was issued on March 10, following a hearing where community members openly spoke against MDEQ’s draft permit approving xAI’s presence in Southaven.

To power xAi’s Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, TN, the company will build 41 gas turbines in Southaven, just across the state line, the NAACP noted in the release. This would be one of the largest power plants in Mississippi. The NAACP described the air permit as a “reckless decision” that violates the agency’s own policies and fails to address community members’ concerns.

Grievances against the gas turbines include their release of PM2.5, a fine particulate matter that travels to the lungs and bloodstream and can cause respiratory diseases such as asthma, heart attacks, and strokes, notes the release. These health risks could also be experienced by residents beyond Southaven, including those in Germantown, North Memphis, and Hernando, per the release, and could lead to $30 million to $44 million in annual health damage.

“We’re extremely disappointed in MDEQ’s decision to greenlight this inadequate permit for xAI’s power plant, which fails to address the significant concerns about the impact of these added turbines will have on communities in North Mississippi as well as South Memphis,” Patrick Anderson, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in a press release.

“Mississippi state regulators appear to be more interested in fast-tracking xAI’s personal power plant than conducting a thorough review of its impacts and having meaningful engagement with the families that will be forced to live with this dirty facility — and its pollution — in their communities,” he continued.

The NAACP also flagged that the permit likely underestimates the amount of air pollution that the plants will emit, and does not address xAI’s operation of up to 27 unpermitted turbines at the site, which violates the Clean Air Act. Instead, the NAACP notes that MDEQ falsely claimed that all of xAI’s unpermitted turbines have pollution controls installed.

“The rushed, superficial responses dropped just this weekend completely ignore our community’s concerns and twist the law to fit their agenda,” said Abre’ Conner, director of environmental and climate justice at the NAACP, in the press release.

“This is why our fight to hold polluters and billionaires accountable is inseparable from the battle to stop dirty data. When agencies won’t stand up for public health and justice, the community must — and will — lead the charge,” Conner continued.