Trump DOJ Trying To Protect Musk From Lawsuit Over Memphis AI Data Center Pollution – Techdirt.
Legal Issues
For a long time organizations like the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) have noted how Elon Musk’s xAI data center in Memphis disproportionately pollutes the air in minority neighborhoods. A joint lawsuit by SELC, Earthjustice, and the NAACP filed last April argued that Musk and friends didn’t even bother to get the necessary permits to run the turbines at its xAI’s Colossus 2 data center.
The lawsuit also notes how these 27 turbines (which has ballooned to 57 turbines since the lawsuit was filed) belch all manner of contaminants, including formaldehyde, into minority neighborhoods already seeing some of the highest asthma rates in the country, violating the Clean Air Act.
But this being Elon Musk, he apparently has been able to leverage the presidency he helped purchase to get those pesky Memphis minorities off of his back. In a filing this week obtained by Wired, the DOJ is trying to claim the lawsuit can’t proceed because xAI and Grok are highly tethered to the country’s national security efforts:
“In a filing, the agency sided with Elon Musk’s company, saying attempts to stop xAI from running the natural gas turbines “threatens American 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.”
Musk and his friends at the DOJ are asking the courts to dismiss the lawsuit. In May, the NAACP filed a request for a preliminary injunction, stating that the climbing rates of environmental pollution “increases risks of asthma attacks and heart disease” in communities that already face significant pollution thanks to regulatory capture and systemic racism.
Over on Elon Musk’s right wing propaganda website, Marc Andreessen pretended to not understand why a civil rights group might be upset that unregulated data centers are pumping pollution into minority Memphis neighborhoods:
It’s worth noting that when Musk built the Colossus 2 data center near Memphis, he promised that the facility would largely re-use water via a next-generation water-recycling plant as to not strain the area water supply. But curiously, construction of that part of the project has stalled out completely. Musk says the company needs to focus on finishing their other data center in the region, then will finish construction. But, well, it’s Musk. The guy always saying we’re *this close* to settling Mars.
Meanwhile, you’ve got a lot of rich assholes (and the politicians who love them) increasingly trying to falsely claim that all of the bubbling over animosity at AI is an inauthentic Chinese “psy-op.” And you’ve got CEOs getting booed at their commencement speeches wondering why AI animosity is so white hot.
The youth movement has tethered AI to the country’s growing fascist, racist corruption and income inequality (and the tech sector that openly embraced it at almost every turn), and it’s going to take a lot more than sloppy CBS propaganda and new software updates to shift the perception. I’m not sure the tech sector truly groks what their enthusiastic support of Trumpism will ultimately reap them.
This is the future we’ve built in a country too corrupt to have functional regulatory oversight of obscenely rich men and corporate power. Without a meaningful ethical renaissance and profound political sea change, it only gets uglier and more violent from here.
Filed Under: ai, clean air act, data center, elon musk, environmental law, lawsuit, memphis, pollution
Companies: naacp, spacex, xai
Shouldn’t Andreessen be spending his time trying to rescue Claude? He’s the one who said we had to elect Trump in order to keep AI research in the public domain.
And now Anthropic is paying of this datacenter (it’s the first time money, and not debt, in pouring into it), it’s clearly not the time to stop it, or xAI may be out of business even it supposed to make 99% of SpaceX revenue.
So, what’s the response from a “I would like to be a responsible, engaged citizen” type like me? I use AI at work, not Grok, I wouldn’t touch Grok with a 10 foot clown pole; but I use Copilot when it’s related to our 365 subscription and Claude for everything else. My coworker uses ChatGPT. I like to pretend Anthropic is the “least evil” of the bunch, kind of like squinting and making yourself feel better saying you use Apple more than Google or Microsoft.
But they’re all rotten, and the AI companies are about the same… Short of throwing all my electronics in the river and never going online again, what other options are there?
Prompt: why is the NAACP of all organizations trying to kneecap datacenters? one sentence answer
ChatGPT:
That framing is misleading—the NAACP has been engaging in policy advocacy around environmental justice and local impacts of large data centers (like energy use, water use, and zoning), not trying to “kneecap” the industry outright.
Gemini:
The NAACP is campaigning against certain data centers because these massive AI facilities are disproportionately placed in Black and brown neighborhoods, where they consume vast amounts of local water and rely on heavily polluting fossil-fuel backup generators that pose severe health risks to nearby residents.
If these professional idiots want datacenters for AI so much, can’t they at least argue with LLMs instead of showing thier diarrhea of thoughts to the world?
Marc Andreessen is engaging in what’s known as “sealioning.” It’s bad-faith. He knows exactly what the problem is.
But, well, it’s Musk. The guy always saying we’re this close to settling Mars.
You have to be practical: turning Earth into Mars saves a lot of rocket fuel.
Why is the NAACP trying to kneecap data centers? Because minority communities are being robbed of their ability to say no to these developments as they’re being gerrymandered into oblivion to strip away what little power they had, allowing racist politicians to grant permission to these developments that will not impact their gated communities or McMansions. They’re saddled with noise, pollution and huge increases in bills they cannot afford from projects that give absolutely nothing back, no jobs, no opportunities, just an ambient drone and the suffocating times from gas turbines that were illegally operating. It is a return to the sh-tty, racist planning that saw major roads slapped through the heart of majority black neighborhoods, things that we keep seeing being rejected in wealthier, white communities now people know how truly awful they are.
Andreesen, Musk, Altman should have these things erected on their properties, if they don’t see the issue. These people own huge amounts of land, they have the space to host them.
Turbine engines do put out exhaust biproducts, but formaldehyde is found for cold-start and idle turbines and incomplete fuel burn. In the typical use case (aircraft engines and the Lycoming AGT-1500 which powers the M-1 Abrams MBT) there is no luxury of “just turn the idling engine off.” With turbine power generators (57 of them!) the unneeded ones are offlined.
That’s why aircraft ramp operations personnel show breathing distress, runny nose, eyes, etc. but MBT operators and people in turbine-powered electrical plant neighborhoods.
It isn’t accurate to suggest the mere existence of a turbine engine equals formaldehyde at levels affecting human beings. If it were the quotes would refer to runny noses, irritation of the skin and nostrils and eyes, not just “there’s an unpermitted 30 extra turbine generator units.”
The rest of the piece is more Trump admin being anti-science, all for “drill baby drill”, “global warming is a myth” and anything that can destroy the environment while enriching the richest men [man?] in the world.
Haven’t read much about Grok being used for targeting when the US bombed Iran. Seems like this should be a bigger deal.
Like, isn’t it a bit premature to be using off-the-shelf AI this early in the game?
I think Trump is worried Anthropic will replace him with AI. It couldn’t do any worse than Trump. Look at the Orange Genius. It only cost the US $40 billion + to give Iran exactly what it wants. And, the even more brilliant part, we have agreed to give Iran another $300 billion. At least that money won’t be wasted on making the US Great!
All the data center stuff is made up. You people are so ridiculous about it. It’s become the new fracking, somehow, and it makes no fucking sense.
This datacenter has a powerplant. It’s basically the same as all the powerplants. This is all so tiresome.
The guy is a nazi and the administration is full of nazis. They just don’t care about those they believe to be less than animals. And it’s terrifying how a whole lot of society has simply shrugged and moved on.
When people ask how the Holocaust was allowed to happen by humanity just point to current times. It’s happening all over again.
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