‘We Deserve to Breathe Clean Air’: Southwest Memphians Take On Elon Musk’s xAI

Conor here: Some good on-the-ground reporting on how AI exacerbates existing inequalities and the extractive destruction of the climate crisis.

By Katherine Burgess, the government accountability reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Originally published at MLK50: Justice Through Journalism.

Easter Knox’s brick home in Boxtown has a garden, space for her dog to run and a bench under a sprawling acorn tree planted by her husband. Years ago, he built a large gazebo in the yard adjacent to theirs — a perfect place to listen to the birds.

Knox, 74, who married into the Boxtown community in 1977, uses the gazebo to gather with her neighbors for paint-and-sip parties and picnics. The kids who grew up playing there call her “Mama Easter.” On May 3, the community will hold its annual Boxtown festival less than a mile away.

It’s a community she loves. It’s also, she said, a community under siege.

“They don’t need to be sending all this different pollution, the formaldehyde and the gas,” Knox said. “We got a good little area, and I just really hate they’re bringing all these things to our area.”

Residents have fought for a seat at the table since they first found out the Colossus supercomputer had arrived in their neighborhood through news reports last summer. The Elon Musk-owned company’s representatives have avoided the public, instead leaving city officials and the Greater Memphis Chamber to explain how its presence will benefit the city. For residents of Southwest Memphis, it feels like a familiar pattern of environmental racism that has targeted the community for decades.

Knox’s home is just two miles from xAI and the methane gas turbines it operates. The neighborhood is home to the now-retired Allen Fossil Plant, which left behind pits of toxic coal ash that Tennessee Valley Authority only began removing in 2021. The Valero Memphis Refinery is in the neighborhood, refining oil next to a public park. In 2021 and 2023, gas flaring at the facility released toxins into the air.

This time, their opponent is the richest man in the world, who also wields incredible political power. Despite this, area residents have been clear about their demands: They want their questions answered, they want to be consulted about future developments before they’re allowed in their neighborhood, and they want polluters, like xAI’s methane gas turbines, shut down.

‘We Deserve to Breathe Clean Air’

When Sarah Gladney woke up and opened the windows of her Boxtown home on a recent Friday morning, she noticed an unusual smell in the air.

Community members are used to a smell that’s akin to waste — a bit like rotten cabbage, she and others told MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. But that Friday, Gladney thought the smell seemed more chemical, and she believes it could have come from the supercomputer located just one mile away from her home.

Gladney has lived in the neighborhood for about 20 years — she calls herself the “new kid on the block.” Now, she wonders how the new xAI facility will impact her health and that of her neighbors.

“What do you have to compare to say that our health is not affected?” she asked. “Our health is our wealth.”

In early April, the Southern Environmental Law Center reported that xAI had 35 gas turbines on site — more than double the 15 previously reported, likely making it the largest source of air pollution in the county. In a letter, the environmental organization wrote that their analysis showed the turbines “are violating critical limits on Hazardous Air Pollutants.” Such turbines emit formaldehyde, which can cause “acute respiratory inflammation.”

In a webinar hosted by the Greater Memphis Chamber, Shannon Lynn, an air permitting consultant, said the 15 permanent turbines awaiting permits will have technology to drastically decrease nitrogen oxides emissions to 2 parts per million, meeting the most “stringent” requirements in the nation.

The SELC has written that the 35 temporary turbines do not appear to be equipped with that technology, and estimated that they are emitting 1,200 to 2,100 tons of nitrogen oxide per year, which would make xAI the largest emitter of those toxins in the county.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young told MLK50 in writing that he has been told fewer than 15 of the turbines are in operation, and that “the company has begun stepping off the turbines as they connect to the recently completed substation.”

The company has told him that they are using the technology to lower emissions on all turbines at the xAI facility, Young said.

Many of the residents of 38109, the ZIP code that encompasses Boxtown and other neighborhoods like Walker Homes and Westwood, have health issues that could be connected to its dirty air.

Knox has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and allergies, while her husband, who grew up in Boxtown, has asthma. Both her father and brother, who lived or worked in 38109 for years, died of cancer.

Shelby County exceeds the national limits on smog, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center. In 2024, the county earned an “F” in ozone pollution from the American Lung Association. Memphis was ranked as the 15th most challenging place to live with asthma by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America last year.

Studies have found that Southwest Memphis has a cumulative cancer risk from specific toxins that’s four times higher than the national average. The life expectancy of people living in District 9, which encompasses 38109 and three other ZIP codes, is the lowest in the county.

“We deserve to breathe clean air just like the communities out east,” Gladney said.

Lack of Engagement from xAI Troubles Community

On April 9, Gladney, Knox and a group of other residents waited two hours in the committee room of the Shelby County Board of  Commissioners for an xAI discussion that was scheduled to last 10 minutes. While the eventual conversation went on for nearly an hour, there was another difference between the published agenda and what actually happened: Brent Mayo, xAI’s senior manager for site build and infrastructure, wasn’t present.

Commissioner Henri Brooks, who chairs the Core City, Neighborhoods and Housing committee, said she had invited Mayo three times, but received a response from Bobby White, chief government affairs officer for the Greater Memphis Chamber, that Mayo had never received the invitation and had never confirmed his attendance. It was unclear why Mayo’s name appeared on the agenda.

White, however, was present, although he did not make a public comment or address the commission.

After the meeting, White stood in the hallway with KeShaun Pearson, president of Memphis Community Against Pollution, two journalists and a group of Boxtown residents. White told the group they should “get away from the speechifying” and instead ask questions, stressing the importance of xAI to economic development in Memphis.

“You can’t kill people for it,” Pearson replied.

That hallway meeting was one of the few opportunities Boxtown residents have had to question those working closely with xAI. They’ve never had a chance to question xAI officials directly.

Mayo did not respond to a request from MLK50 to comment for this story.

Residents had a chance to question Young during a “fireside chat” hosted by Pearson in March. No one from xAI attended.

During the event, Young touted the tax revenue xAI will bring to the community and how the company will build a water recycling facility, also selling water to TVA and Nucor Steel and allowing them to cease using water from the aquifer. The Daily Memphian has since reported that the company is being taxed on a total investment of $2.2 billion, far shy of the $12 billion previously touted by the chamber.

The $33 million in tax revenue to the city and the county will still make xAI the second largest taxpayer in the county, second only to FedEx, said Ted Townsend, president of the Greater Memphis Chamber.

In an interview with MLK50, White pointed out that the tax revenue will grow as xAI expands.

“It would be economic development malfeasance if we allowed a company bringing billions of dollars to our community to go a half a mile down the street to end up in Mississippi, where they could still use all our assets but all those tax dollars end up in Mississippi rather than the Volunteer State,” White said.

Young has also pointed to the creation of a gray water facility to alleviate strain on the Memphis Sand Aquifer as a win for Memphians. While environmental advocates generally support the facility, they also question how the company will cool a second data center planned by xAI in Whitehaven. xAI has not announced how it will cool that second data center, although Young told MLK50 the company is “exploring multiple options for cooling, including non-water-based options.”

Boxtown’s residents say they believe the mayor has acted more as an advocate for the project, not for the Memphians living near it.

“Our community is extremely frustrated and, unfortunately, not surprised, at the lack of engagement by our elected officials and the corporation adjacent folks like the Memphis Edge Board and Memphis Chamber,” said Pearson. “The folks that we trusted to ensure our protection against projects like this, against exploitation in this way, have paved the way and not only paved the way, they’ve held the banner up in support of this exploitative project.”

For his part, Young told MLK50 that he has acted as a “convener, which is a key role of a strong mayor.

“I have also been a strong advocate for my community from day one,” Young said. “I have sought the best possible deal for our city and our people and have pushed hard at every opportunity to make this a win for Memphis.”

The chamber has defended xAI’s tight-lipped approach. “Community members are not the same as stockholders in a company that are required to be communicated with,” White said. “This idea that a business, a private business, making a private investment without public incentives that is not requiring a change in zoning, that there is a requirement that they come knock on your door and give you a report on everything they’re doing, it just kind of misses … how important confidentiality is as a part of early economic development projects.”

‘Community of Broken Promises’

In 1971, the city of Memphis annexed Boxtown, a majority Black neighborhood established by formerly enslaved people who built their homes out of old railroad cars. The city promised sewer, water, electricity and roads to the newly annexed area.

Some of that work was done, Gladney said, but many of the homes didn’t see water, sewer or electricity for years.

Today, 95% of 38109 residents are Black. The median household income is less than $37,000. The poverty rate is more than 31%. Its residents feel the neighborhood has been forgotten, lacking in grocery store access, good roads and more.

Young has said he plans to allocate some of the tax revenue from xAI specifically to the neighborhood, and that a draft will be brought to City Council soon. Residents say they won’t believe it until they see it in writing.

The area is good at fighting its own battles, though. In 2020, the community was labeled “a point of least resistance” by a representative of Plains All American Pipeline during its attempt to build the Byhalia Connection oil pipeline through the neighborhood with Valero in 2020. That project was cancelled after fierce pushback from residents of South Memphis, including those in Boxtown.

Residents chuckle at that title now.

“They’ve never gotten to know us,” Gladney said. “They see us as an opportunity to come in because they feel like there’s no fight, and they didn’t know the history of this community. The history means you’ve got fighters in this community. We’re not going to go to sleep. We’re not going to lie down and let you take our land.”

Still, residents question why their neighborhood is constantly targeted by polluting industries.

“Why did (xAI) choose this location?” said Barbara Britton, the president of the Boxtown Neighborhood Association. “Is it because they think we’re the least resistance? There’s 49 more states and I don’t know how many more areas they could have chosen … but they chose this area, a poor, Black neighborhood. Why us?”

The Fight to Come

On March 31, at the Shelby County Commission, South Memphis residents had what they considered to be their first win in the fight against xAI. Commissioners passed a resolution, which had been proposed by opponents to xAI like MCAP, to ask the Shelby County Health Department to hold a public hearing before either granting or denying a permit to operate 15 natural gas turbine generators. Those turbines are already in operation, and while the health department has said xAI has a year before they need a permit, the SELC has challenged that the turbines should be permitted and are operating illegally.

Richard Massey, a University of Memphis student, told commissioners that the operation of the methane gas turbines was the “slow lynching of their neighbors.”

“When the richest man in the world who has laid off government workers who live and work in Shelby County, who has worked to dismantle the EPA by firing the inspector general and weakening emission standards and who has come here to boost his profit margins at the expense of our neighbors, party lines don’t matter anymore,” Massey said during public comments.

In that commission meeting, Dr. Michelle Taylor, head of the health department, committed to holding a hearing, which has now been scheduled for April 25 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Fairley High School Auditorium, 4950 Fairley Road.

The permitting process requires the department to accept public comments for at least a 30-day period but does not normally require a public hearing. That comment period is open until April 30, with options to submit online, via email or via phone.

As for the April 25 meeting, Knox said she hopes the health department will deny the permits after hearing from the community.

“I hope they will resolve the issue that’s out here and let us know what’s going on,” she said. “There’s too many sick people out here and too many senior citizens. We need to know what is what. … They’ve given us too many promises and the politicians, the ones who’s supposed to be representing our community, they’re not telling us nothing. They need to tell us something.”