Locals and activists have been raging ever since Musk’s “Colossus” supercomputer fired up last summer. The monster data centre, spanning 13 football fields, supposedly powers the chatbot Grok but apparently does a decent job of powering Memphis’ respiratory clinics too.
The first public hearing to tackle the mess is set for 25 April 2025, but leaflets have landed in mailboxes across historically Black neighbourhoods. The anonymous fliers insist xAI’s operations are clean as a whistle.
Things properly hit the fan when the Southern Environmental Law Center caught xAI red-handed, quietly moving in at least 35 methane gas turbines without bothering to get air permits.
Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney Amanda Garcia said: “It is appalling that xAI would operate more than 30 methane gas turbines without any permits or any public oversight,”
Satellite and thermal imaging shows at least 33 turbines were burning away, belching heat and, presumably, plenty of junk into the local air.
Memphis mayor Paul Young, a loyal Musk cheerleader, tried to calm things down he said: “There are 35, but there are only 15 that are on. The other ones are stored on the site."
Unfortunately for Young, thermal snaps suggest otherwise, with nearly all the turbines cooking merrily at once.
Neither xAI, Young, nor the Shelby county health department could be bothered to answer media questions, but then again that is pretty much standard practice these days.
Musk has even bigger plans. He’s already snapped up another 1 million square feet to expand xAI’s empire, which is brilliant news for people who always dreamed of breathing soup.
The Southern Environmental Law Center is demanding answers about what exactly xAI is pumping into Memphis’ air and why no one in charge seems remotely interested in stopping it.
Meanwhile, an anonymous group “Facts Over Fiction” group sent out fliers claiming xAI’s turbines are “specially designed to protect the air we all breathe.”
Tennessee state representative Justin Pearson wasn’t having any of it. In an Instagram post, he tore into the PR drivel, saying the leaflets were “lying to us about xAI’s methane gas pollution” and warning that methane leads to “more asthma attacks, more respiratory illness.”
He said: “We have to combat the lies and misinformation Clean air is a human right and the Shelby county health department has a duty to protect the air we breathe.”