The Trump administration's Department of Justice has taken action to protect Elon Musk's xAI company from civil rights litigation and has asked a federal court to allow the company to continue operating unlicensed gas turbines near predominantly Black communities in northern Mississippi.

The Department of Justice filed documents on June 15, 2026, seeking to intervene in a Clean Air Act case brought by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and subsequently requested that the court dismiss the lawsuit. Government lawyers argued that cutting power to the turbines would harm national security because the turbines power Grok—the Pentagon says it now relies on this artificial intelligence model.

Attorneys for affected residents called the move an unprecedented grab of power in modern environmental enforcement.

The NAACP and its Mississippi chapter sued xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech on April 14, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. The complaint describes 27 gas turbines installed at 2875 Stanton Road South in Southaven, which were installed between August and December 2025 specifically to power the Colossus 2 data center located in Memphis, approximately one mile away.

Borrowing language from the tech industry's own playbook, the complaint accused the company of attempting to "move fast and break things" while violating the Clean Air Act—a law that requires major pollution sources to obtain permits before operating. The complaint noted that the proportion of Black residents living around the facility far exceeds the national average, placing the case squarely within the NAACP's environmental justice work.

The 27 turbines alone could emit more than 1,700 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides annually, likely making the facility the largest industrial pollution source in the greater Memphis area. This is not the first time xAI has encountered disputes locally over unlicensed power, as the historic Black community of Boxtown in south Memphis has already battled similar turbines at Colossus 1, less than ten miles away.

The plaintiffs seek to have the Southaven facility shut down, require adoption of state-of-the-art pollution control measures, and impose maximum daily penalties of £94,200 ($124,400) for each day of violation. As xAI continued to increase the number of turbines rather than seeking permits, the NAACP requested a preliminary injunction in May; court filings show that by mid-month, the number of turbines had increased to 57.

The Department of Justice's Environmental and Natural Resources Division told the court that the lawsuit threatens "the national, economic, and energy security of the United States" by seeking to shut down power to AI work that supports military operations. In a sworn declaration, Pentagon Chief Digital and AI Officer Cameron Stanley stated that Grok is one of only four cutting-edge models capable of supporting national security applications across classified networks.

Stanley wrote that the model connects to the Maven Smart System and assisted U.S. military operations against Iran by enabling strikes of over 2,000 munitions against 2,000 different targets within 96 hours. He warned that losing power to the data center would undermine the military's ability to keep pace with adversaries.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves submitted a letter to the court supporting the company, urging the judge to "protect these vital state and national interests," noting that xAI's investment in the state is approximately £15 billion ($20 billion). xAI separately filed its own motion to dismiss, arguing that the NAACP lacks standing to sue and that Mississippi regulators have already classified its portable turbines as mobile sources exempt from permitting requirements.

The company also contended that the Clean Air Act's citizen suit provision is unconstitutional because enforcement authority should be exercised solely by the executive branch. These filings came just days after SpaceX, which acquired xAI in February, completed what has been described as the largest stock market initial public offering in history.

EarthJustice and the Southern Environmental Law Center, representing the NAACP, called the government's action a "massive power grab" designed to weaken a tool communities have used for over 50 years. It is unusual for the federal government to side with the alleged polluter rather than enforcing the law itself in such cases.

Citizen suits allow residents to enforce environmental laws when regulators fail to act, and lawyers warned that the government's rationale would permit any administration to protect its favored polluters. They emphasized that the Department of Justice never disputed that the pollution violates the law, only claimed that the government should be free to permit it.

Residents near the Southaven facility also filed a separate class action lawsuit this month addressing the nearly constant noise and vibration from the turbines. Abre' Conner, who leads the NAACP's environmental and climate justice work, stated on the "Democracy Now" program that communities themselves should decide what happens to the air they breathe, warning against what she called authoritarian rule.

Hearings on the preliminary injunction are expected within weeks, and the court has not yet ruled on the intervention request or motions to dismiss.

For families breathing polluted air on Stanton Road, the struggle is no longer simply about what xAI built, but whether anyone still has the power to stop it.