By Georgia Wells

The NAACP sued Elon Musk's xAI Tuesday, alleging the company's efforts to power its data centers in Tennessee and Mississippi are creating a health risk for local residents.

Musk's artificial intelligence company and its subsidiary MZX Tech are illegally operating gas turbines without an air permit at a data center in Southaven, Miss., in violation of the Clean Air Act, the lawsuit said.

The suit alleged the turbines emit pollution and hazardous chemicals that have been linked to increases in asthma, respiratory diseases, heart problems and certain cancers.

"A data center should not be a potential death sentence for a community's health," NAACP's Director of Environmental and Climate Justice Abre' Conner said in a statement.

xAI didn't respond to a request for comment.

Lawmakers in more than 10 states have proposed temporary bans on data-center construction this year amid rising public concerns, reflected in opinion polls, over energy prices, noise pollution and other issues.

This once-sleepy plot of land along the Tennessee and Mississippi border has become the front line of Musk's foray into the AI wars as he tries to play catch-up to rivals including OpenAI and Anthropic.

Musk already built one massive data center in Memphis that his company describes as the world's largest supercomputer. That facility, called "Colossus," powers the technology behind the AI chatbot Grok. Musk is also working on a second facility in the region that will be even bigger, called Colossus 2.

Among locals, his arrival has kindled hopes of an economic renaissance, but it has also stoked controversy. The billionaire's pitch to Memphis is that he is building infrastructure that will benefit the city. Musk's data centers will probably bring in only a few hundred jobs while consuming millions of gallons of water a day and more electricity than is needed to power all of the homes in Memphis. Responding to criticism over the use of natural-gas turbines, xAI has argued that many of the structures are temporary and don't require a permit.

The civil rights group filed the suit in the Northern District of Mississippi, where it is being represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice. The suit said xAI has built the power plants for these data centers in communities with significant Black populations.

xAI has weathered internal churn ahead of the initial public offering of its parent company SpaceX. The company conducted a round of layoffs in March.

Write to Georgia Wells at georgia.wells@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 14, 2026 19:43 ET (23:43 GMT)

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