DOJ moves to block NAACP pollution suit against Musk’s xAI center

The Justice Department moved to stop a NAACP air-pollution lawsuit that accuses Elon Musk’s xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech LLC of running dozens of unpermitted methane gas turbines to power a data center in the Memphis area. In a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, Oxford Division, the department said the facility’s AI systems are “critical to the economy and the Department of War.”

The motion, filed June 15, asks the court to let the United States intervene and dismiss the case with prejudice. The lawsuit was filed April 14 by the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP and the national NAACP, with the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice representing the plaintiffs. It alleges that xAI and MZX Tech violated the Clean Air Act by operating turbines without required permits at the Colossus 2 site in South Memphis and Southaven.

The NAACP and its lawyers say the turbines have created illegal pollution for nearby neighborhoods, including communities that have long borne a heavy environmental burden. Earthjustice described the department’s move as “a desperate attempt to protect wealthy tech companies from obeying the laws meant to protect people from pollution.” Stanley Woodward, speaking for the department, said the intervention was intended to “protect national security and promote American energy and innovation.”

The permitting history is central to the dispute. xAI began operations at its South Memphis data center in June 2024. On July 2, 2025, the Shelby County Health Department granted xAI an air permit for 15 turbines. But the Southern Environmental Law Center said xAI had already installed 35 gas turbines without permits, oversight or public input.

Separate reporting this year described 27 unpermitted turbines at the Southaven site, with combined generating capacity of about 422 megawatts, close to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Brownsville gas plant at roughly 425 megawatts. That scale has turned the data center into a test case for how far the federal government will go in using national-security arguments to shield politically connected AI infrastructure from environmental scrutiny.

The fight also fits a broader pattern. The Justice Department has already intervened in another xAI dispute, backing the company in its challenge to Colorado’s algorithmic discrimination law. Together, the cases suggest a federal posture willing to defend Musk’s AI buildout on both regulatory and security grounds, even as local air-permit enforcement and citizen-suit litigation push in the opposite direction.