The United States government has intervened on behalf of Elon Musk's xAI in a legal dispute over the environmental impact of a $20 billion data center in Tennessee, claiming that efforts to block a related power project threaten national security.
In a court motion filed this week, the Department of Justice requested the dismissal of a lawsuit accusing xAI of illegally operating dozens of natural gas turbines at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, constructed to power the Colossus 2 data center in Memphis, Tennessee.
The NAACP, the largest civil rights group for African Americans, filed the lawsuit in April under the 1963 Clean Air Act, alleging that xAI erected the turbines without necessary permits, exposing hundreds of thousands of residents to harmful pollutants linked to asthma, respiratory diseases, heart problems, and certain cancers. The lawsuit notes a disproportionately large share of Black residents in the affected area.
In its motion, the Justice Department accused the NAACP of threatening “national, economic, and energy security by seeking to shut off the power supply for artificial intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations.”
Adam Gustafson, the top prosecutor at the Justice Department’s environment and natural resources division, stated that the government would “not sit idly by while private organizations use environmental laws to undermine our national security.”
Earthjustice, representing the NAACP, condemned the intervention as a “massive power grab” by the Trump administration. Laura Thoms, Earthjustice’s director of enforcement, said: “Trump’s Justice Department wants to shield Elon Musk’s xAI from being held accountable for its illegal pollution – and it’s attempting to grab power from impacted communities, the courts, and Congress to do so.”
Abre’ Conner, director of environmental and climate justice at the NAACP, emphasized that polluters should not benefit “at the expense of the health of Black communities.”
The Trump administration has cultivated close ties with Musk, appointing him as a temporary cost-cutting tsar and using xAI’s Grok model in the Pentagon’s drive to become an “AI-enabled fighting force.”
In testimony supporting Monday’s motion, Cameron Stanley, the Pentagon’s top AI official, stated that Grok was used to launch more than 2,000 munitions at 2,000 targets within the first 96 hours of the US-Israel war on Iran. If Grok cannot be deployed due to energy supply limitations, numerous Pentagon tools would be “severely impacted,” he said.
Source: www.aljazeera.com