Colossal Polluter: NAACP Moves to Sue Musk in Memphis

By Willy Blackmore, Word in Black

Activists say the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s massive Colossus data center — powered by a cluster of gas-fueled power plants — is operating outside of EPA regulations, worsening the air in a mostly-Black neighborhood.

Since June 2024, Elon Musk’s tech company, xAI, has run a massive data center known as Colossus in South Memphis that powers its chatbot Grok. It’s powered by dozens of methane-burning turbines — as many as 35 at one point — that are completely unpermitted. 

Despite public outrage over the facility, however, xAI has made no significant changes to its operation. So the NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center are preparing to sue Musk for violating the Clean Air Act.

LEARN MORE: Memphis Had a Smog Problem Long Before Elon Came to Town

“All too often, big corporations like xAI treat our communities and families like obstacles to be pushed aside,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “We cannot afford to normalize this kind of environmental injustice — where billion-dollar companies set up polluting operations in Black neighborhoods without any permits and think they’ll get away with it because the people don’t have the power to fight back. We will not allow xAI to get away with this.”

Environmental Injustice

Patrick Anderson, a senior attorney with SELC, helped prepare the complaint against xAI on behalf of the NAACP. He says xAI “has been adding new turbines still and so we finally decided nobody else is going to take action and so we would have to.” 

The paperwork sent last Tuesday is not a lawsuit, but is likely the first steps toward one. Before being able to sue over a Clear Air Act violation a complaint must be filed against the emitter, and they have a 60 day period in which to resolve any violations. 

If that deadline passes without a resolution, the complaint can then be used as the basis for a lawsuit. And since xAI has not been communicative when it comes to Colossus, it seems unlikely that there will be a resolution without a lawsuit.

The SELC complaint against xAI includes four separate claims. 

The first and most significant hinges on the distinction the EPA makes between major an”d minor pollution sources, and the different sets of rules and standards that apply to both categories..

From Bad to Worse

Anderson says the complaints “all flow from the fact that these guys have built a power plant, basically without getting the permit and without using the pushing control technology that they should.” 

RELATED: Black Folks to Elon Musk: Hands Off Our Neighborhood

All of this is happening in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Memphis — a city with a 63% Black population that already has some of the worst air quality in all of the South.

“I can look at a map of where all these emitters are, and a map that shows where black people live in Memphis. And there’s a huge amount of overlap there,” Anderson says. Near Colossus, he says, is an oil refinery, a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant, a new steel mill, and a variety of other smaller polluters. 

Read more on why NACCP is suing Elon Musk in Memphis.

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