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A city’s dream deal promised jobs, money. Then residents learned it was with Elon Musk.
Memphis landed a $12 billion project to house Musk’s supercomputer, which some say will transform the struggling city. It has been met with anger and suspicion.
June 1, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. EDTYesterday at 6:00 a.m. EDT
By Holly Bailey
MEMPHIS — For decades, this storied American city has watched companies come but mostly go, its vacant storefronts and blighted buildings a reminder of its days as a thriving manufacturing hub and the painful decline that followed as those jobs vanished.
As Paul Young, the city’s mayor, puts it, Memphis has been “the city people forgot about.”
Then last summer, Memphis landed what Young and local business leaders called the city’s largest corporate investment in a generation — a “transformative” development for a place that has struggled to convince outsiders of its continued potential.
The project was something every city dreams of, Young said in a recent interview — an estimated $12 billion private investment that came with no requests for tax incentives or other economic concessions demanded of Memphis in the past, one he believed could create hundreds of jobs. “A game changer,” he said.
Then came the mic drop, as some Memphians tell it: The city’s surprise suitor was Elon Musk. The tech billionaire had chosen a long-vacant appliance factory on the city’s south side to be the site of a multibillion-dollar supercomputer that would power his foray into the intense race to develop the world’s most sophisticated artificial intelligence model.
Musk’s plan to launch xAI’ssupercomputer was immediately viewed with suspicion and, in some cases, anger by residents who criticized the secrecy around the project and its environmental impact. They questioned how the massive data center’s appetite for power would affect Memphis’s vulnerable electric grid, already prone to sustained blackouts.
NAACP calls for emergency shutdown of Musk’s supercomputer in Memphis
The civil rights group alleges that the project’s pollution could be harmful to nearby residents.
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Musk’s xAI supercomputer concerns some Memphis residents
May 30, 2025, 2:45 PM PDT
By Bracey Harris and Jon Gerberg
Local regulators should immediately stop Elon Musk’s supercomputer project from operating in South Memphis because it’s out of compliance with environmental rules, the NAACP wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Shelby County officials.
The civil rights group addressed the request to Dr. Michelle Taylor, director of the Shelby County Health Department, and to the commissioners of Memphis Light Gas and Water. The health department is responsible for implementing federal air regulations in Shelby County, which encompasses Memphis.
“Being the world’s richest man doesn’t give you the right to pollute Black communities and jeopardize the health of its residents,” NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement to NBC News. “We urge the health department to step in immediately.”
When contacted, a spokesperson for Memphis Light Gas and Water said it had not received the NAACP letter and could not comment on it. Neither the health department nor xAI immediately responded to questions about the letter, which was also signed by the presidents of the Tennessee and Memphis chapters of the NAACP.
In a previous statement to NBC News, xAI said its “operations comply with all applicable laws” and that it “works collaboratively with County and City officials, EPA personnel, and community leaders regarding all things that affect Memphis.”
xAI has come under scrutiny in recent months for operating methane gas turbines at its Memphis facility to meet the electricity needs of the supercomputer Colossus. The turbines emit pollutants, including nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde, according to their manufacturer.
Environmental groups and the NAACP believe the turbines required permits under the Clean Air Act; the city’s health department, the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce have said permits were not required for the turbines’ first year of use. xAI, which is now seeking a permit for 15 permanent turbines, said those would be equipped with pollution controls and only be used as backup once other energy options are available.
Earlier this month, NBC News reported on a South Memphis neighborhood called Boxtown, about two miles from xAI’s facility, where residents are concerned that Musk’s project will harm the area’s already poor air quality.
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“They got money. And they can do what they want to do, you know, without consulting us,” said Easter Knox, who has lived in the area since 1977. Knox told NBC News she and her husband both struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which can be exacerbated by pollution.
Health department officials have been limited in their comments about the project. On Friday, news broke that Taylor, the department head, would be leaving Shelby County to oversee the Baltimore City Health Department.
Colossus, which xAI calls the world’s largest supercomputer, came online in September 2024 to train Grok, the company’s chatbot. But critics say the project’s potential economic benefit to the community is outweighed by environmental concerns.
“While we applaud research and innovation,” the NAACP letter states, “there must be limits that ensure that communities are healthy and alive to enjoy the benefits of any potential innovation.”
Shelby County health officials are expected to make a decision on xAI’s application in the coming weeks.
Memphis Mayor Paul Young previously told NBC’s “Nightly News” that the city plans to work with a researcher to implement air monitoring in the months ahead.
Rosamond Press 
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