Department of Justice sides with Elon Musk’s xAI in Southaven lawsuit
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The lawsuit, filed by the NAACP, claims that xAI is illegally operating gas turbines to power its data centers in Southaven and Memphis.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The U.S. Department of Justice is intervening on behalf of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company in a lawsuit filed by the NAACP, claiming xAI is illegally operating gas turbines to power its data centers in Southaven and Memphis.
xAI on Monday asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the NAACP does not have legal standing to sue. The DOJ, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves and Cameron Stanley, the chief digital and artificial intelligence officer at the Department of Defense, also asked the court to dismiss the case.
“The state urges you to take immediate action to intervene and protect these vital state and national interests,” Reeves said in a letter to the court.
Last summer, xAI began operating 18 mobile and temporary turbines in Southaven and has since upped the number to 57, according to recent court filings. Southaven residents say that nearly constant noise coming from xAI’s turbines is intolerable. In a separate class action lawsuit against xAI, residents detail how the noise has disrupted their daily routines, caused them to lose sleep and lowered their property values.
In Mississippi, mobile generators do not need an air permit if they operate for less than a year. The Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the NAACP, says that the turbines are polluting the air and should require a permit. They have asked the court to stop xAI from operating the generators until it gets air permits for them.
xAI is using the mobile turbines until it finishes constructing a permanent power plant, which will be early next year according to court documents. In March, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality approved air permits for xAI to build permanent gas turbines at the site.
Reeves wrote that xAI’s $20-billion investment in Mississippi data centers will create thousands of jobs and prevent electricity rates from going up for other customers. He said that if the state granted the NAACP’s request to shut down the turbines it would create an “immediate and substantial disruption to the state’s economy.” In January, when the investment was announced, Reeves said it was the largest economic development project in the state’s history.
Both Reeves and Stanley said that stopping the turbines would pose a national security risk and threaten U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence.
Stanley said that xAI’s AI model, Grok Gov Mode, “provides critical support” for the U.S. military and was used in recent attacks against Iran.
“If xAI is hindered from continuing to improve and upgrade Grok, including the Grok Gov Model, (the military's) ability to meet its national security mission and keep pace with adversaries will be impaired,” Stanley said in the statement.
The motions came just days after SpaceX, xAI’s parent company, went public last week with the largest initial public offering in history.
In xAI’s motion to dismiss the case, the company argued that the NAACP cannot sue xAI on behalf of its members and that under the Clean Air Act states hold “primary responsibility” for implementing federal air quality standards.
xAI also wrote that the Clean Air Act’s provision that allows individuals to sue a polluter for violating federal environmental law is unconstitutional. It argues that only the executive branch can enforce federal law. Other companies have tried to use this argument, including in two cases that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear last year.
“At a time when the ultra-rich seem to be protected and supported by some of our government entities, it is important that polluting industries don’t get to benefit at the expense of the health of Black communities,” said Abre’ Conner, NAACP Director of Environmental and Climate Justice. “Laws like the Clean Air Act are a bedrock insurance policy for communities to hold polluters accountable for decisions that cause them harm.”
Update, 6/16/2026: This article has been updated from its initial version to include comments from an NAACP spokesperson.
