Mississippi regulators to hold xAI permit meeting on election day

With Elon Musk’s xAI planning to construct an enormous, natural-gas burning energy plant in Southaven, Mississippi, the state’s environmental authority has scheduled a board assembly for Tuesday — Election Day for the 2026 primaries — to resolve whether or not to grant the corporate key permits.

The NAACP and different civil rights and environmental advocates tried to get the assembly delayed, arguing that it was being rushed and would battle with some residents’ efforts to vote. The teams additionally stated that by holding the assembly in Jackson, almost 200 miles away from Southaven, these immediately affected by the plant are impeded from attending.

“This isn’t solely a civic responsibility conundrum, however an pointless monetary burden to Black residents and people who reside in low-income and different communities close to the power,” the NAACP wrote in a letter to the Mississippi Division of Environmental High quality (MDEQ) that is dated March 8, however was launched publicly on Monday.

They asked that the listening to be rescheduled and moved to a web site nearer to the proposed facility.

The MDEQ denied the request on Monday, writing in a response to the NAACP that its allow board “repeatedly meets on the second Tuesday of every month, which has been the usual observe for many years,” and that the regulator, “considers issues on a statewide foundation.” A duplicate of the letter was shared with CNBC.

The assembly is about to happen a bit of over a month after Musk merged xAI with SpaceX, his reusable rocket firm, in a transaction that valued the mixed entity at $1.25 trillion. Since beginning xAI in 2023, Musk has tried to show the AI firm into an OpenAI competitor within the booming generative AI market.

Coaching and operating AI fashions requires hefty quantities of compute and energy, and rising utility payments have been partly blamed on the huge electrical energy consumption of recent information facilities. At a meeting final week with the White Home, execs from tech corporations, together with xAI, signed non-binding pledges to produce their very own energy for his or her services.

Up to now, xAI has relied on its Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 information facilities in Memphis, Tennessee, simply throughout the Mississippi state line. In Southaven, a roughly 15 minute drive from Memphis, xAI is investing within the proposed energy plant, and a big information middle dubbed Macrohardrr.

Following the MDEQ’s response on Monday, the NAACP stated in an announcement that by having the listening to the morning of Election Day, three hours away from the neighborhood, “their actions converse volumes.”

“They’re making an attempt to sneak xAI’s information middle into the neighborhood’s yard they usually do not care concerning the folks dwelling there,” the letter stated.

In February, the NAACP filed a notice of intent to sue xAI over alleged Clear Air Act violations in Southaven.

As CNBC beforehand reported, residents within the space say they’ve endured round the clock noise air pollution, and are involved about air high quality and public well being points from xAI’s use of “short-term” pure gas-burning generators. Analysis by scientists on the College of Tennessee found that xAI’s earlier turbine use added to air air pollution woes in Better Memphis.

At a public listening to on Feb. 17 in Southaven, about 200 residents turned out to implore state and native officers to disclaim xAI authorization to quickly construct out information and energy infrastructure with out higher transparency, neighborhood engagement and efficient efforts to forestall noise and air air pollution.

Physicians, mother and father, lecturers and native officers spoke out on the listening to.

“We’re slowly falling out of affection with the place we’ve determined to develop our household,” stated Taylor Logsdon, a mom of three, citing pollution, noise ranges and adverse well being results. “It is no coincidence that that is taking place now. And I really feel it can solely worsen.”

A current investigation by Floodlight confirmed that xAI has been working greater than a dozen “short-term” generators concurrently in Southaven, because it beforehand did in Memphis. The corporate has argued that the generators didn’t require federal permits, however environmental compliance consultants have disagreed.

Neighborhood pushback and regulatory necessities are among the many elements driving Musk and different tech executives to discover the potential of information facilities in house.

WATCH: SpaceX takes on xAI cash burn after merger