The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and its Mississippi State Conference, which are represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), filed a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, of illegally operating more than 20 natural gas turbines without proper permits at its Southaven facility.
The lawsuit accuses xAI of installing and operating 27 gas turbines from August until December 2025 without obtaining proper permits from both federal and state agencies, in violation of the Clean Air Act. Without the permits, the NAACP further claims xAI failed to comply with federal requirements to use modern technology and operated without taking all available steps to limit the turbines’ emissions.
Alleging that the company improperly applied Mississippi’s exemptions for mobile turbines in defiance of the Clean Air Act, the lawsuit also claims the level of pollution generated by xAI, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and formaldehyde, could qualify the company as a major source of hazardous air pollution, which would trigger additional scrutiny into its Mississippi operations.
The lawsuit also notes that similar allegations were made against the company in Tennessee, where the NAACP and SELC last year sent xAI notice that it intended to sue over its use of temporary turbines at its Colossus 1 site in Memphis.
No lawsuit has been filed over the company’s operations in Tennessee, and a team of researchers at the University of Memphis released an analysis in September that indicated xAI generated only a minimal increase in air pollution in the city through its AI data center. The company received permission from the Shelby County Health Department to operate its turbines last July.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) issued its permit for xAI to operate turbines at its Colossus 2 data center in Southaven in March, when the company said it was “thrilled that MDEQ approved our permanent construction permit unlocking 1.2GW of self-generating power capacity.”
The federal lawsuit against xAI in Mississippi was assigned to U.S. District Judge Michael Mills, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2001.
Grok, the company’s flagship AI chatbot, has grown to between 35 million and 78 million monthly active users (MAUs), including up to 10 million daily users, since its November 2023 launch.
About 18 percent of all AI chatbot users in the United States also reported using Grok late last year, which represented a dramatic increase from just 1.9 percent who confirmed using the chatbot in early 2025. Despite the growth, Grok’s market share continues to lag behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini products.
– – –
Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Elon Musk” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 4.0.
.jpg){kind=link}