Get you up to speed: Trump administration seeks to halt air pollution lawsuit against xAI
The US Department of Justice has intervened in a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI regarding the operation of natural gas turbines at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, which powers a data centre in Memphis, Tennessee. The DOJ claims that the NAACP’s lawsuit threatens national security by attempting to block the energy supply for artificial intelligence innovation.
The US Department of Justice filed a motion in a District Court this week seeking to dismiss the NAACP lawsuit filed in April under the Clean Energy Act. The lawsuit alleges that xAI operated natural gas turbines without necessary permits, potentially exposing residents in Mississippi and Tennessee to health risks.
The Department of Justice has moved to dismiss the NAACP’s lawsuit against xAI, arguing that it jeopardises national security and economic stability. Earthjustice, representing the NAACP, labelled the intervention as “a massive power grab,” asserting it undermines accountability for pollution affecting Black communities.
What remains unclear — It is uncertain how the lawsuit’s outcome will affect the operation of xAI’s data centre and its implications for local communities.
Trump administration moves to dismiss air pollution lawsuit against xAI
US Department of Justice claims NAACP lawsuit threatens ‘national, economic, and energy security’.
The United States government has intervened on the side of Elon Musk’s xAI in a legal dispute over the environmental impact of a $20bn data centre 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 Southaven, Mississippi facility constructed to power the Colossus 2 data center in nearby Memphis, Tennessee.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the largest civil rights group for African Americans, filed the lawsuit in April under the 1963 Clean Energy Act, which allows citizens to seek injunctions and civil penalties against alleged polluters.
The NAACP alleges that xAI erected the turbines without obtaining the necessary permits, exposing hundreds of thousands of residents in Mississippi and neighbouring Tennessee to harmful pollutants linked to “increases in asthma, respiratory diseases, heart problems, and certain cancers”.
The lawsuit notes that a “much larger share” of residents are Black compared with the US general population.
In its motion, filed in a US District Court on Monday, 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”.
The motion also claims that the US Constitution vests the power to seek civil penalties “conclusively and preclusively” in the executive branch, including the “discretion to decide when such an enforcement action is unwarranted or inconsistent with federal enforcement priorities”.
Adam Gustafson, the top prosecutor at the Justice Department’s environment and natural resources division, said in a statement that the government would “not sit idly by while private organisations use environmental laws to undermine our national security”.
xAI, which is a subsidiary of Musk’s SpaceX, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Elon Musk listens to a speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping during a state dinner with US President Donald Trump at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, China, on May 14, 2026 [File: Mark Schiefelbein/AP]
Earthjustice, an advocacy group representing the NAACP in the lawsuit, condemned the intervention as a “massive power grab” by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Trump’s Justice Department wants to shield Elon Musk’s data center company, 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. There is no moral or legal precedent for this,” Laura Thoms, director of enforcement for Earthjustice, said in a statement.
Abre’ Conner, director of environmental and climate justice at the NAACP, said that polluters should not benefit “at the expense of the health of Black communities”.
“Laws like the Clean Air Act are a bedrock insurance policy for communities to hold polluters accountable for decisions that cause them harm,” Conner said in a statement.
“This should not be up for debate, and the NAACP will continue to stand up for democracy and against federal bullying and authoritarianism.”
The Trump administration has cultivated close ties with Musk, the world’s richest man, tapping the tech titan as a temporary cost-cutting tsar and using xAI’s flagship model Grok in the Pentagon’s drive to become an “AI-enabled fighting force”.
In testimony in support of Monday’s motion, Cameron Stanley, the Pentagon’s top official for AI, said that Grok had been 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 and upgraded due to “limitations in energy supply or limited reserve compute capability”, numerous tools used by the Pentagon would be “severely impacted”, Stanley said in a declaration made under oath.