Elon Musk’s xAI Faces Legal Threat: February 2026. XAI, the intelligence company that Elon Musk started is, in trouble again. People are taking them to court because of the air and noise that their computer servers are making in Southaven, Mississippi. This is what the people who care about these things are saying about xAI and its data centers.
On Friday the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice acting for the NAACP sent a notice that they plan to sue xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech LLC. The groups say that xAI is using a lot of natural gas fired turbines, which they think is against the Clean Air Act. They also think that xAI needs permits for this but the company does not have them. The Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice are upset, about xAIs actions and the way xAI is using these natural gas fired turbines.
The xAI turbines that give power to xAI data centers have been causing problems for over a year now.
They use the kind of equipment at the xAI places in Memphis, Tennessee.
This includes the xAI Colossus 1 and xAI Colossus 2 data centers.
People who care about the environment say that the bad things coming out of the xAI turbines are making the air dirty in the areas, around them.
People are taking a look at the expansion plans. The expansion plans are getting a lot of attention. People want to know more, about them. What do these expansion plans really mean? The expansion plans are being carefully examined.
xAI said they are going to build a data center in Southaven. This place is 20 miles south of Memphis. When they made this announcement Tate Reeves mentioned that this project will create hundreds of jobs in DeSoto County. The people who will get these jobs will be working there all the time. XAI is really making plans and this data center, in Southaven is a part of it.
In the year 2023 xAI started doing business. Now xAI is competing with companies, like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. These companies are all working on something called AI and it is growing very fast.
This month Musk said that SpaceX bought xAI. When this happened the value of the company was around $1.25 trillion.
Community Health and Noise Concerns
People who live in Boxtown, which’s a neighborhood in South Memphis where a lot of Black people reside have spoken up at public meetings about the bad smells the really bad air quality and the health problems they think are caused by the turbines. The turbines are making the air dirty. Researchers from the University of Tennessee found out that the turbines are adding to the pollution in the air in Boxtown. The residents of Boxtown are worried, about the turbines and the bad air they are breathing.
Environmental groups were really upset about the turbines in Memphis. They said they would take legal action.. Then they stopped because local health officials said the equipment was only going to be there for a little while and was not like the engines you find in cars. Now though the Environmental Protection Agency has said that these turbines do not get to be considered non-road engines so the Environmental groups are speaking out again about the turbines, in Memphis.
Noise pollution is a problem now. Jason Haley, who lives in Southaven said to the media that the turbines are always running and they make a lot of noise inside his house. This noise is really bad. Jason Haley is part of a group called Safe and Sound. They are keeping track of how loud the noise’s they want the people in charge to do something about it. They think there should be rules about how loud the turbines can be. The people, in the group Safe and Sound are trying to make things better.
Next Steps
The people in charge in Mississippi are going to have a meeting that’s open to the public on Tuesday. They want to hear what the community thinks about xAI putting up and running 41 turbines at the site, in Southaven. This is something that was talked about before. The state of Mississippi officials need to know if they should let xAI install these 41 turbines at the Southaven site.
Patrick Anderson, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center said that the xAI system must follow federal law. The xAI system has to do what the law says. When the xAI system does not follow the rules of the Clean Air Act, which’s a law that protects people from bad air it is very bad, for the health and wellbeing of regular people. Patrick Anderson said this in an email. He is talking about the xAI system. The xAI system is the problem and it needs to comply with the law said Patrick Anderson.
The people at xAI did not say anything away when we asked them for a comment. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality also did not say anything back, to us.
The dispute reflects a broader national trend as communities across the U.S. push back against the rapid expansion of energy-intensive data centers. In recent months, Microsoft and Amazon have both scaled back or abandoned data center projects following local opposition
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