미국 'Elonville' 주민들은 머스크의 xAI가 데이터센터 소음과 관련해 소송을 제기하지 않겠다는 조건으로 주택을 매입하겠다고 제안했다고 말했다.

People in a Mississippi neighborhood, many of whom dislike a nearby power plant central to Elon Musk's artificial intelligence ambitions, have received a stark offer: sell their houses to his company and make way.

Real estate agents have been going door to door in Southaven, Mississippi, on behalf of xAI, touting a deal to purchase houses as long as the owners agree not to join a lawsuit against the company over the power plant's noise. (Musk's AI company officially became SpaceXAI in July and has lately been rebranded as SpaceXSI, but to neighbors of the datacenter in Mississippi, it remains xAI.)

The plan could potentially swallow up almost the entire neighborhood of Colonial Hills, on the western flank of Southaven. A realtor told one resident there is a target to purchase 418 homes, with 18 homeowners already agreeing to sell, according to a recording of a conversation heard by the Guardian. xAI did not respond to questions about these numbers or its plans for the neighborhood. It has previously said it intends to be a good neighbor and denies all claims in the noise lawsuit.

The homes, the realtor and the local mayor say, will house xAI staff as the company continues its explosive expansion in the area, with three of its datacenters springing up in Southaven and adjoining Memphis, Tennessee, in just the past two years. This frantic pace, and the all-hours noise from gas turbines installed without permits to power the datacenters, has dismayed some locals.

"It sounds like an airplane engine, but it's continuous. It's incredibly loud," said Elizabeth Rose, a piano teacher, of the xAI site, which sits about two miles from her home. "I've been woken up at 2am by it, I've been woken up at 3am by it. I sometimes have to just get away from it because it makes me so angry."

Rose said she was shocked when the power plant, a former Duke Energy site housing 69 temporary gas turbines to feed the new datacenters, began its low-level growl in August last year. "All of a sudden there was a plant there," she said. "And now I get the feeling they are trying to expand the buyout to the entire neighborhood. It will become Elon Musk's little playground, basically. Elonville."

The market-value offers for these homes, in an area where the average house price is about $180,000, are a comparatively small outlay in creating the world's largest cluster of AI supercomputers, as envisioned by Musk, a technologist who is the world's richest person and a major Republican donor.

Since July 2024, xAI has constructed three vast datacenters, called Colossus I, Colossus II and Macrohardrr, in the Memphis and Southaven conurbation, which sprawls across Tennessee's border with Mississippi. Musk is currently spending up to four nights a week in an Airstream trailer in the Memphis area as he personally oversees the build-out of the datacenters to further develop the Grok AI chatbot.

"We're seeing the fastest growth I've ever seen in my life for Grok bot," Musk said during a SpaceX earnings call this month. "I've never seen anything grow this fast."

Musk has spent about half a billion dollars helping elect Republicans in the last two election cycles, and his zeal for datacenters is shared by Donald Trump, who has said anyone who opposes such development will become "backwards and poor."

As is common in the broader grassroots backlash against datacenters, however, some residents in Southaven say they have been trampled upon in this gold rush. Three locals, anguished by the din of expansion, filed a lawsuit in June complaining of "near-constant noise, vibrations and other nuisance-level harms" from the nearby xAI power plant.

Jason Haley, one of the three plaintiffs, said he never considered himself an activist or political in any way, but he had been driven to distraction by the noise of the gas turbines, which sit about half a mile from his home. He has owned the home for the past 20 years.

"There's a high-pitched hum, and then another sound like an airplane over your house," he said. "It's been so torturous I can't sleep. I just leave the house or turn on some music until I fall asleep completely exhausted. It drives you insane. You also lose hope because you're being ignored or dismissed. There's no escape."

Exasperated by fruitless exchanges with Southaven's mayor, and enraged by Tate Reeves, the Republican, pro-AI Mississippi governor, who claimed that curbs on datacenters are "surrendering the future of technology to China," Haley lodged the lawsuit and started posting videos on social media of himself monitoring the rumbling noise levels.

"I thought I'd make some noise of my own because of this bullshit," said Haley. "I didn't know anything about Elon, and I still don't know the man. But our governor saying I don't love America because I don't like being tortured by noise? That is just asinine and ignorant. We've got to hold people accountable when they are harming other people. I don't care who you voted for, who you pray for or who your favorite team is."

xAI denies the allegations of heedless noise. It has previously said that "we care deeply about being good neighbors" and has varied its power output and built sound-dampening walls. In a letter handed to nearby residents in Colonial Hills, MZX, the xAI subsidiary that operates the site, states that it "requires property for its business purposes" and is prepared to buy nearby houses with a contractual condition: that the owners do not join Haley's class-action lawsuit.

The offer is starting to see results. Since 9 October, five neighborhood homes have been bought by MZX, according to DeSoto County records. Gavin Foust, who lives near Haley and said his elderly neighbors have just agreed to sell, predicts more will follow.

"They are ideal neighbors and planned to live the rest of their lives in that house, but they want to get out of Dodge now because they don't want to be bothered by these turbines," said Foust, who added that he won't accept the offer himself because of its requirement not to sue.

"My hearing was damaged when I was in the army, but I can still hear this thing. It's like a jet engine. Why would you put it in a city? Why push people out? It's reckless and shameful."

Foust, a paramedic, grew up in the unassuming western reaches of Southaven, a district filled with affordable 1960s homes and quiet, close-knit communities. This serenity has been upended by the noise from the xAI power plant, he said, as well as by its air pollution.

Dozens of temporary, truck-sized gas turbines have been running at the xAI premises without permits required by federal law, the US Environmental Protection Agency has determined. The EPA has also said the permit requirements are a matter for the state to enforce.

No on-site air pollution monitoring has been done, but the Southern Environmental Law Center estimated that the toxic emissions from these turbines, which are typically highly polluting, have caused $44m in annual health costs.

In April, environmental groups and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sued in federal court to stop use of the turbines. The US Department of Justice unsuccessfully tried to block the lawsuit, arguing that xAI technology has been used to wage war on Iran and is therefore required for national security reasons.

"It's been pretty shady from the get-go," said Foust. "A lot of people in this neighborhood suffer from conditions exacerbated by all the nitrogen oxide, formaldehyde and other garbage put out by these turbines. For kids with asthma or elderly people with COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], it's a mess all round. It's pretty frustrating."

In July, xAI agreed with state regulators to transform the power plant into a newer, permanent gas-fired facility by next summer, which should lessen the noise from the temporary turbines. Given the company's repeated use of gas turbines without a federal permit, and the separate fines it may face for storm water violations, though, opponents remain wary.

"I've had hopes all along that haven't come through," said Haley. "The same company said it wasn't polluting the air. I'm still hopeful, but I'm not confident."