![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/play-icon.png\"\/){kind=icon}
Listen to this article<\/p>\n Listen to this article<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 The largest U.S. civil rights<\/a> group on Tuesday sued xAI and a subsidiary, claiming they illegally operated more than two dozen gas turbines in Mississippi<\/a> to power its Colossus 2 data center, posing a health risk to local residents.\n<\/p>\n The\u00a0NAACP<\/a>, represented by Earthjustice and the Southern Environmental Law Center, sued xAI and subsidiary MZX Tech, charging they violated the federal Clean Air Act by running 27 gas-fired turbines before getting necessary air permits for its massive data center that powers xAI\u2019s Grok chatbot<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n Elon Musk<\/a>\u2018s artificial intelligence startup xAI has invested more than $20 billion to build the data center in Southaven with the full backing of Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, but the facility, as well as Colossus 1 just over the border in Memphis, Tennessee, has\u00a0met heavy opposition from local communities due to their effect on local air and environmental quality.<\/p>\n \u201cBy looking to evade clean air laws to operate dirty turbines that emit pollution and known carcinogens, these companies are following a shameful, familiar pattern: asking Black and frontline communities to bear the toxic brunt of \u2018innovation,\u2019\u201d said Abre\u2019 Conner, director of the Center for Environmental and Climate<\/a> Justice at the\u00a0NAACP.\n<\/p>\n The\u00a0NAACP\u00a0announced its intention to sue xAI and MZX in February because the Clean Air Act requires 60 days of notice ahead of filing a lawsuit.\n<\/p>\n Mississippi regulators held one public hearing that month about permits for those turbines after just a few days of public notice for the hearing, and subsequently approved the permits.<\/p>\n xAI was not immediately available for comment.\n<\/p>\n Earthjustice said that xAI\u2019s Southaven power plant has the potential to emit more than 1,700 tons of smog-causing nitrogen oxides (NOx) each year, a major source of smog in the greater Memphis area.\n<\/p>\n They are also estimated to emit 180 tons of fine particulate matter, 500 tons of carbon monoxide, and 19 tons of cancer-causing formaldehyde.\n<\/p>\n ___\n<\/p>\n Reporting by Valerie Volcovici.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article WASHINGTON \u2014 The largest U.S. civil rights group on Tuesday sued xAI and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3433,9085,3980,140,8059,7947,2899],"class_list":{"0":"post-11189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-xai","8":"tag-chatbot","9":"tag-civil-rights","10":"tag-climate","11":"tag-elon-musk","12":"tag-mississippi","13":"tag-naacp","14":"tag-xai"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}