A federal judge, Debra M. Brown, rejected xAI's motion to dismiss a lawsuit from the NAACP accusing the company of operating unpermitted methane gas turbines at its Memphis data center campus in violation of the Clean Air Act. xAI had argued the turbines were exempt because they were mobile, but Brown ruled the power plant supplying the data center is stationary and thus subject to permitting rules. The NAACP filed suit in April, and xAI has since added more turbines at a nearby site in Southaven, Mississippi.
engadget.com
· 2026-11-01
A Sierra Club analysis, first reported by Bloomberg, projects that US grid emissions could reach 2.1 billion metric tons of CO2 by 2030 if currently planned AI data centers come online as scheduled. That would mark a 42 percent jump from 2025 levels, driven largely by gas-fired power plants built on or near data center sites to bypass grid bottlenecks.
futurism.com
· 2026-11-01
Real estate agents working on behalf of Elon Musk's xAI have been approaching homeowners in Southaven, Mississippi, offering to purchase their properties in exchange for signing agreements not to sue over noise from nearby data centers, according to The Guardian. One agent said the goal is to acquire 418 homes, and recordings reviewed by the outlet show 18 homeowners have already agreed to sell. Residents near the three data centers built in Southaven and nearby Memphis over the past two years describe constant, jet-engine-like noise disrupting their sleep.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-28
Bloomberg forecasts that U.S. AI data centers will consume up to 15 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day by 2035, more than double an earlier projection of 6.9 billion cubic feet. The surge stems from operators turning to onsite gas turbine generators as grid power buildouts lag behind AI compute demand, with data centers expected to draw roughly 194 gigawatts, or 20% of U.S. power, by that year.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-09-15
New housing data shows list prices falling across 36 of the 50 largest U.S. metro areas as autumn approaches, with Austin, Tampa, and Memphis registering the steepest drops. The pace and severity of price cuts vary widely by region, forcing many sellers to lower their expectations.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-07
xAI-affiliated SpaceXAI is giving Memphis and Southaven, Mississippi residents 50% off Starlink internet plans and waiving the upfront cost of its new V5 hardware kit, following criticism over unpermitted gas generators powering its AI data centers. About 2,000 households have signed up since the July launch, a small fraction of the roughly 250,000 households in the Memphis area. A similar promotion is running in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana.
techspot.com
· 2026-09-05
xAI is offering a 50% discount on Starlink residential internet plans to residents near its Memphis and Southaven data centers, along with free hardware for its new Starlink V5 rental kit, saving up to $349 upfront. The company says roughly 2,000 people have signed up since the promotion began in late June, even as it faces criticism over unpermitted gas turbines powering its facilities.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-09-04
SpaceXAI apologized after a technical failure at its Memphis compute facility knocked Grok offline for roughly three and a half hours starting around 6:30AM PT Thursday, hitting the service on X as well as its Android and iOS apps. The company also apologized to unnamed 'compute partners,' and around the same time Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT reported their own error spikes, though neither company confirmed a direct link to the Memphis outage.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-03
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