Elon Musk’s AI firm xAI is facing legal action over alleged violations of the US Clean Air Act at its Memphis data center.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) said on Tuesday (17 June) that they intend to sue the company over its use of natural gas turbines at the site.

The lawsuit contends that xAI did not obtain the necessary permits to legally operate the 26 natural gas turbines that were installed on the site to power its operations. SELC, which is representing the NAACP in the suit, has previously argued that the use of the turbines puts residents under significant health risks and was deployed without any oversight or notice to the local community.

“All too often, big corporations like xAI treat our communities and families like obstacles to be pushed aside,” said NAACP president Derrick Johnson. “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.”

In response, xAI has said that they received an exemption to operate the turbines for a period of up to 364 days without a permit. In a statement, xAI said the “temporary power generation units are operating in compliance with all applicable laws,” and it intends to equip the turbines with the necessary technology to reduce emissions going forward.

However, SELC senior attorney Patrick Anderson said that there is no such exemption for the turbines, and even so, the time elapsed already exceeds the apparent 364-day deadline.

“xAI’s decision to install and operate dozens of polluting gas turbines without any permits or public oversight is a clear violation of the Clean Air Act,” said Anderson. “Over the last year, these turbines have pumped out pollution that threatens the health of Memphis families. This notice paves the way for a lawsuit that can hold xAI accountable for its unlawful refusal to get permits for its gas turbines.”

The data center, which went live in July 2024, had an initial capacity of 150MW. However, last October, it was reported that the capacity at the data center was set to double, following the installation of an additional 100,000 Nvidia Hopper GPU’s to the cluster. The data center is being used to train and run the company’s AI chatbot, Grok. It is located on an industrial park at Paul Lowry Road, in southwest Memphis.

The data center obtained a grid connection from local utility TVA for an initial 8MW of power, increasing it to 150MW last November. In April, it was revealed that the data center had doubled the number of gas turbines at the facility to a reported 35, in apparent violation of its onsite generation permit, which only allowed 15.

The presence of the additional turbines was revealed in aerial photos acquired by SELC, with support from SouthWings. The turbines have a combined capacity of 422MW.

Following the revelation, a complaint was filed to the Shelby County Health Department, claiming that the turbines made the data center the largest industrial source of the smog-forming pollutant NOx in Memphis.

Since then, it was reported that xAI had begun to remove some of the turbines at the site after a new electricity substation came online. In addition, reports also surfaced that the company had installed 168 Tesla Megapack battery energy storage units on the site to manage outages and demand surges.

The company has announced plans for a second data center in the city, following the purchase of a one million sq ft (92,903 sqm) site on Tulane Road, which is located in the Whitehaven area of Memphis. The site is located next to the Southaven Combined Cycle natural gas power plant, which generates 780MW of power.