The Trump administration is defending Elon Musk in a lawsuit over claims that his artificial intelligence company xAI is polluting residential neighborhoods in northern Mississippi. The Justice Department late Monday directed a federal court to throw out the case.
The lawsuit was filed by the NAACP in April after xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech allegedly installed dozens of methane gas turbines without air permits to power a data center in South Haven, Mississippi. The lawsuit claims these turbines emit toxic pollutants in violation of the Clean Air Act and asks a judge to block xAI from operating the machines.
The Justice Department says the data center is used to train and develop AI models “important to the economy and the Department of the Army,” and the turbines are needed to power the facility. In a 33-page memo filed in Mississippi federal court, the government also argues that it can terminate such “citizen lawsuits” under the Clean Air Act.
“The Department cannot stand idly by while private entities use environmental laws to undermine national security,” said Adam Gustafson, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
The central focus of xAI is a chatbot called Grok. It is similar to ChatGPT, but is known for non-consensual deepfakes, sexual images of women and minors, and controversies such as calling itself “MechaHitler.” The Justice Department said in its filing that continued availability of Grok is a “top priority” for national security, and that the military version of the chatbot helped the U.S. military “deploy more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition to 2,000 different targets within 96 hours” during the war against Iran.
xAI’s parent company, SpaceX, last week made the largest initial public offering in history, valuing it at more than $2 trillion. The IPO made Musk the world’s first millionaire. In recent weeks, xAI partnered with Google and Anthropic to rent space in its data centers for billions of dollars a year.
Lawyers representing the NAACP said affected communities have long had the right to sue polluters, and the Justice Department cannot simply quash these lawsuits. He added that all companies, including those with federal government contracts, must follow environmental laws.
“There is no moral or legal precedent for this,” said Laura Thoms, executive director of Earthjustice, which represents the NAACP along with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This is not about national security. It’s a desperate attempt to protect wealthy technology companies from following laws meant to protect people from pollution.”
xAI has two data centers in the region, nicknamed “Colossus 1” and “Colossus 2.” These are large facilities, the latter occupying one square foot in South Haven. Colossus 1 is located in Memphis, several miles from a historically black neighborhood that has long dealt with harmful pollution. Both data centers have been the subject of community backlash and protests.
The NAACP alleges that xAI illegally installed and operates 57 gas turbines at its South Haven facility. One of them is about the size of a large bus. The group claims the data center is capable of emitting more than 5,000 tons of harmful nitrogen oxides annually, along with particulate matter and toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde, making it one of the region’s biggest sources of pollution. These pollutants have been linked to increases in asthma, heart disease, respiratory disease, and cancer.
“Laws like the Clean Air Act are bedrock insurance for communities to hold polluters accountable for decisions that harm them,” said Abre Connor, NAACP environmental and climate justice director. “This shouldn’t be up for debate.”
xAI did not respond to a request for comment.
