I live 3 miles from xAI’s South Memphis data center, where Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company has been operating dozens of methane gas turbines without critical — and we believe legally required — environmental permits. My neighbors and I are forced to breathe the pollution this company pumps into our air every day. We smell it. We inhale it. This isn’t just an environmental issue — it’s a public health emergency.
Memphis and Shelby County had a pollution crisis long before Musk and xAI powered up Colossus, a massive supercomputer. The American Lung Association gave us an “F” for air quality for four of the last five years, and we got a D the one year we didn’t get an F. We haven’t met federal ozone standards since 2021. We are known as an “asthma capital” in the U.S., and recent statistics found that we had the most asthma-related ER visits in Tennessee.
Now, in response to this growing threat to the air we breathe, we’re fighting back. Last week, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) sent xAI a notice of intent to sue on behalf of the NAACP, a notice that is mandatory under the Clean Air Act. This action is about justice, transparency and our human right to breathe clean air.
Together, the turbines at the xAI data center have a generating capacity that SELC says rivals that of a regional Tennessee Valley Authority power plant. Despite claims from the Shelby County Health Department, the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce and xAI that permits aren’t required for the turbines’ first year of use and xAI’s assertion that it is “operating in compliance with applicable laws,” SELC, which performed a thorough analysis of the turbine models’ specifications and applicable environmental law, disagrees. It believes xAI’s turbines are stationary engines and therefore require an air permit. SELC asked the county Health Department to shut down the turbines and explain where SELC’s legal opinion is wrong. These requests have not been met…