Elon Musk’s xAI wants to build its own power plant in Mississippi, but why residents are not happy with the plan

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, is seeking permission to build a massive, natural-gas-burning power plant in Southaven, Mississippi. This new power plant will help the company run its nearby data centers. However, the residents of the area are not happy with the project. Several residents in the area have complained about continuous noise and are raising concerns about air quality and possible public health effects associated with xAI’s use of “temporary” natural gas-burning turbines. Research conducted by scientists at the University of Tennessee also found that the company’s earlier turbine operations contributed to air pollution concerns in the Greater Memphis area.

According to a report by CNBC, around 200 residents attended a public hearing last month in Southaven to urge state and local officials to deny xAI approval to quickly expand its data and power infrastructure without clearer disclosures, stronger community engagement, and measures to limit noise and air pollution. Physicians, parents, teachers, and local officials spoke during the hearing, the report noted.

“We are slowly falling out of love with where we have decided to grow our family. It’s no coincidence that this event is happening now. And I feel it will only get worse,” Taylor Logsdon, a mother of three, said, referring to pollutants, noise levels, and health concerns at the hearing.




A recent investigation by Floodlight found that xAI has been operating more than a dozen “temporary” turbines simultaneously in Southaven, similar to its earlier operations in Memphis. The company has argued that the turbines did not require federal permits, though environmental compliance experts have disagreed.

Training and operating AI models requires significant computing capacity and electricity, and the growing power demand from new data centres has been linked to rising utility costs. At a White House meeting last week, executives from several technology companies, including xAI, signed non-binding pledges to power their facilities with their own energy.

Currently, xAI relies on its Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers in Memphis, Tennessee, located just across the Mississippi state line. In Southaven, about a 15-minute drive from Memphis, the company is investing in a proposed power plant and a large data centre called Macrohardrr.

NAACP opposes timing and location of hearing on xAI power plant in Mississippi

Mississippi’s environmental regulator has scheduled a board meeting on the same day as the 2026 primary elections to decide whether to grant key permits for xAI’s Southaven power plant, CNBC reports.

The NAACP and several civil rights and environmental groups asked for the meeting to be postponed, arguing that the timeline was rushed and could interfere with residents’ ability to vote. They also said that holding the meeting in Jackson, nearly 200 miles from Southaven, could limit participation from people living near the proposed facility.

“This is not only a civic duty conundrum, but an unnecessary financial burden to Black residents and individuals who live in low-income and other communities near the facility,” the NAACP wrote in a letter (seen by CNBC) to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) that was released recently. The groups requested that the hearing be rescheduled and moved closer to the proposed plant site.

Recently, the MDEQ rejected the request. In its response to the NAACP, the agency said its permit board “regularly meets on the second Tuesday of each month, which has been the standard practice for decades,” adding that the regulator “considers matters on a statewide basis.”

The meeting comes a little more than a month after Musk merged xAI with SpaceX, his reusable rocket company, in a deal that valued the combined entity at $1.25 trillion. Since launching xAI in 2023, Musk has been positioning the company as a competitor to OpenAI in the generative AI market.

After the regulator’s response on Monday, the NAACP said in a statement that holding the hearing on the morning of Election Day, about three hours away from the community, “their actions speak volumes.”

“They’re trying to sneak xAI’s data center into the community’s backyard and they don’t care about the people living there,” the letter added.

In February, the NAACP filed a notice of intent to sue xAI for alleged Clean Air Act violations related to operations in Southaven.