Since the middle of last year, residents of Southaven, Mississippi have lived next to near-constant noise and vibrations from gas-powered turbines at an xAI data center. The company built a sound barrier. Residents say it has not helped. When xAI started operating, there were 18 turbines. As of May, there are 47. The number keeps growing, and so does the harm to the people who live nearby.

Not one of those turbines has an air permit.

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, is operating industrial-scale natural gas turbines in a Mississippi community without the environmental permits required under the federal Clean Air Act. The NAACP, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, has already filed a federal lawsuit over the violations. Now Southaven residents have filed their own class action suit alleging that the noise, vibrations, and nuisance-level harm have damaged their quality of life and reduced their property values.

xAI has been able to avoid permitting requirements by taking advantage of a Mississippi rule that allows temporary or portable turbines to operate for one year without an air permit. The company is not running a temporary operation. It has announced a $20 billion investment to build a data center in Mississippi. Its parent company, SpaceX, is preparing to go public at an estimated $1.8 trillion valuation. This is one of the wealthiest corporate operations in the world, running unpermitted fossil fuel infrastructure in a residential community and calling it temporary.

The EPA has the authority and the obligation to enforce the Clean Air Act regardless of who owns the facility. We are calling on the EPA to open a formal enforcement action against xAI and MZX Tech for operating without required air permits, and to require the company to obtain permits or shut down the unpermitted turbines.

We are also calling on the Mississippi legislature to close the loophole that made this possible. A one-year temporary permit exemption designed for small, genuinely portable equipment should not be available to a company running dozens of industrial turbines as permanent infrastructure. The legislature must close that gap before another company uses the same workaround in another Mississippi community.

The residents of Southaven did not consent to living next to an unpermitted gas plant. They deserve enforcement, accountability, and a fix to the law that left them exposed.

Sign to demand the EPA act and Mississippi close the loophole.