In April, the NAACP sued Elon Musk’s xAI, alleging the company illegally operated 27 natural gas turbines without an air permit at its data center power plant in Southaven, Mississippi. Despite ongoing litigation, xAI has apparently added another 19 turbines to its fleet.
According to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, the company now has 46 “temporary-mobile” turbines at its Southaven facility, Mississippi Today reported Monday. Internal emails between an MDEQ official and a representative from Trinity Consultants, obtained by the Southern Environmental Law Center and shared with WIRED, reportedly show that xAI installed the additional 19 turbines between late March and early May.
Gizmodo was unable to independently verify these claims, and neither xAI nor the MDEQ immediately responded to a request for comment.
Gas turbines surge amid AI boom
Gas turbines are internal combustion engines that burn natural gas to spin a turbine and generate energy. Demand for them has surged amid the AI boom—tech companies are increasingly turning to on-site gas turbines to meet the enormous, around-the-clock energy demands of their data centers.
They’re more efficient than conventional coal-fired power plants, but like any generator that burns fossil fuels, these turbines emit hazardous air pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds. That’s why the Clean Air Act requires companies to obtain an air permit prior to installing and operating them.
In March, Mississippi regulators granted xAI a permit to build a 41-turbine power plant in Southaven to power its Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers, located just across the Mississippi state line in Memphis, Tennessee. A month later, the NAACP, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice, sued the company for allegedly operating 27 gas turbines at the Southaven site between August and December 2025—before receiving an air permit.
A misinterpreted loophole?
The state let xAI run those turbines during that period because they are mounted on flatbed trailers and therefore fall under a “temporary-mobile” exemption that allows them to operate without an air permit for up to a year, Mississippi Today reports. MDEQ also considers the 19 turbines reportedly added between March and May to be temporary mobile installations. That means no one is monitoring the air pollution generated by these 46 turbines.
“Tens of thousands of people, including members of Plaintiffs NAACP and NAACP Mississippi State Conference (‘NAACP MS’), live, worship, study and work in the homes, churches, and schools that immediately surround the Colossus Gas Plant, and hundreds of thousands more live in the greater Memphis area,” the lawsuit states. “A much larger share of this population is Black than that of the country’s population as a whole.”
Southern Environmental Law Center attorneys argue this loophole doesn’t actually apply to xAI’s trailer-mounted turbines. The Clean Air Act defines a stationary turbine as “not self-propelled or intended to be propelled while performing its function. It may, however, be mounted on a vehicle for portability.”
Earlier this month, the NAACP filed a request for a preliminary injunction to halt the operation of xAI’s “illegal power plant” while litigation proceeds, arguing that emergency action is necessary to “protect nearby communities that are facing imminent health harms.” The court has not yet ruled on the request.
This case highlights the growing tension between AI’s power demand and public health and safety, with marginalized communities bearing the brunt of the industry’s rapidly expanding impact. The outcome of this lawsuit will either set a precedent for stricter oversight of data center energy infrastructure or reinforce regulatory gray areas that put the public at risk.
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