Musk accused of polluting impoverished community with illegal gas turbines

xAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup, is one of the bright spots in Musk's corporate portfolio. Founded less than two years ago, xAI has already raised $12 billion and is drawing interest in a new $10 billion funding round. In March, xAI acquired X, Musk's struggling social media platform, in an all-stock transaction that valued xAI at $80 billion.

But if xAI wants to maintain its reputation as a legitimate player in the AI space, rivaling OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, it needs massive amounts of computing power. Huge numbers of ultra-high-end chips are required to train the AI models and respond quickly to millions of queries.

That's why Musk, who started xAI many years after its competitors, moved at lightning speed to build a facility needed to train its AI model, Grok. In about 122 days, xAI built Colossus, "the world's largest AI supercomputer," in southwest Tennessee. Colossus launched in October 2024 with "100,000 NVIDIA Hopper GPUs" and Musk, and now has 200,000, according to the company. Ultimately, Musk plans to expand the facility to 1 million GPUs.

All that computing power, however, requires a lot of energy. xAI initially said it would require 150 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 100,000 homes, to run Colossus. The local energy company, Memphis Light Gas and Water (MLGW), is not able to provide xAI with that much power currently. Before Colossus, existing demand already strained MLGW's generation capacity.

So what did xAI do? According to the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), the company broke the law.

In January 2025, after the facility had already been operating for months, xAI filed a draft construction and air pollution permit for 15 gas turbines. This permit is open for public comment through April 25. But drone photos obtained by SELC revealed that xAi is already operating at least 35 turbines at the facility.

These 35 turbines can produce over 420 megawatts of electricity. That is the equivalent of an entire power plant. If Colossus expands to 1 million GPUs, it will require at least 1000 watts (1 gigawatt) of electricity. That is "one-third of all power supplied" by MLGW.

In an April 9 letter to the health department of Shelby County, Tennessee, SELC says that xAI's 35 gas turbines were "all constructed and operating unlawfully without any air permit in Southwest Memphis." According to SELC, the 35 gas turbines emit "between 1,200 and 2,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) per year, making the facility likely the largest industrial emitter of NOx in Memphis." It is currently producing more nitrogen oxides than the Memphis International Airport (1,077 tons), the Draslovka chemical plant (743 tons), the Valero oil refinery (342 tons).

That levels of emissions, SELC says, "vastly exceed the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review major source threshold, meaning not only has xAI constructed these turbines without even a minor source air permit, xAI has also violated the Clean Air Act and Shelby County’s rigorous preconstruction permitting requirements for major sources of air pollution."

Further, "xAI’s 35 turbines are violating critical limits on Hazardous Air Pollutants, or HAPs," including "the carcinogenic HAP formaldehyde at rates well above the major source threshold." Formaldehyde is "both carcinogenic and it causes acute respiratory inflammation." The EPA "generally requires the use of control technology, called catalytic oxidizers, to reduce formaldehyde, benzene, toluene, and other HAPs." But "[i]t does not appear that any of xAI’s turbines are currently equipped with these controls or are otherwise complying with HAP limits."

xAI is allegedly illegally operating gas turbines in a majority-black area of South Memphis that was already "home to an oil refinery, a steel mill, and chemical plants." It is home to the world's largest cargo airport, and 2400 diesel trucks pass through the area daily. Residents "have high rates of asthma…and four times the national rate of cancer…health impacts that have been linked to industrial pollution." Life expectancy in South Memphis is 67 years, well below both the state average (75) and Shelby County as a whole (79).

MLGW claims Xai will create about 300 jobs through Colossus, although it did not specify whether the jobs would be temporary or permanent. Data centers require minimal staffing.

“Suffocating our community with formaldehyde and nitrogen oxide from these 35 dirty, unpermitted gas turbines shows the blatant disregard for the lives of the majority Black community in South Memphis. The rapid scaling of these dangerous toxic pollutants is this is reckless, irresponsible, and a threat to us all,” KeShaun Pearson, Director of Memphis Community Against Pollution, said.

As head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk is eliminating government programs that study or mitigate environmental justice. Among other moves, the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice was disbanded. Grok is reportedly being used to inform DOGE's decisions, including monitoring federal employee communication for anti-Trump or anti-Musk sentiment.

SELC is demanding that the county "issue an emergency order that requires xAI to stop using the turbines immediately and to reject the company’s pending air permit application."