NAACP sues xAI over unpermitted gas turbines at Mississippi data center

The NAACP filed suit Monday against Elon Musk’s xAI and its subsidiary, MZX Tech, saying the company illegally ran 27 gas turbines without the air permit required to power its Colossus 2 data center in Southaven, Mississippi. The complaint, brought with Earthjustice and the Southern Environmental Law Center, says the operation violated the federal Clean Air Act and exposed nearby residents to unlawful pollution.

The case puts one of the country’s most closely watched AI builders at the center of an environmental-justice dispute with national reach. xAI has invested more than $20 billion in the buildout, with backing from Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, as it expands the infrastructure behind Grok and its broader artificial intelligence business. The NAACP says the pattern is familiar: Black and frontline communities absorb the health costs of industrial development while the benefits flow elsewhere.

Earthjustice estimated the Southaven site could emit more than 1,700 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides each year, along with about 180 tons of fine particulate matter, 500 tons of carbon monoxide and 19 tons of formaldehyde. The lawsuit says those emissions came from gas-fired turbines operating before the company secured the necessary air permits. The complaint argues that xAI was effectively building a power plant for the data center before regulators had fully signed off on the project.

The fight had already been building for months. The NAACP and allied environmental groups sent a notice of intent to sue roughly two months before filing the case, warning that xAI was already violating the Clean Air Act. Residents and advocacy groups also challenged Mississippi’s permit decision, and hundreds of people packed a Southaven public hearing to oppose xAI’s request to build and operate 41 natural gas turbines. Mississippi regulators later approved permits after short notice, but the lawsuit says those steps came only after the turbines were already running.

For civil-rights advocates, the suit is about more than one company or one permit. It is a test of whether AI’s hunger for power can outrun environmental review in communities with less political leverage, and whether state and local permitting systems can keep pace with the speed of data-center development. The result could shape how similar projects are approved across the country, especially where fast-growing technology infrastructure collides with public health and democratic oversight.