Justice Department lawyers argue xAI is “vital” to national security in NAACP lawsuit

The Ministry of Justice intervened in A Litigation over XAI’s gas turbines on monday. In a filing, the agency sided with Elon Musk CompanySaying that attempts to prevent XAI from operating natural gas turbines “threatens the national, economic, and energy security of the United States by seeking to cut off the energy supply to AI innovations that support the War Department’s military operations.”

The Justice Department, along with XAI and the state of Mississippi, asked the court to dismiss the NAACP’s lawsuit in April.

The NAACP alleges that xAI is not following the Clean Air Act and is endangering public health by operating unlicensed natural gas turbines at its second data center site in Southaven, Mississippi, called Colossus 2. In May, the NAACP filed a request for a preliminary injunction to block XAI from operating the turbines, claiming that their continued use without a permit “increases the risk of asthma attacks and heart disease” in communities that already have them. Heavy pollution burden.

xAI and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the Justice Department memo, there are only four Artificial intelligence modelsincluding GROC, which “supports mission-critical operations across classified and top-secret networks.” A separate announcement by Cameron Stanley, the Defense Department’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, explains how the military is relying on the government’s GROK model “to support critical national security missions.” This includes using the model as part of recent strikes against Iran. Forcing XAI to stop operating the gas turbines that power Colossus 2, Stanley says, “directly threatens our ongoing national security interests.”

xAI—which is Part of SpaceX– It rose to national fame in 2024 when residents of southwest Memphis began raising alarms that the company had begun operating unlicensed gas turbines at its first data center location. The Memphis area has one of the highest rates of asthma in the country, and residents fear additional pollution from unlicensed turbines. State agencies in both Tennessee and Mississippi claimed the company had a year to operate the turbines without obtaining clean air permits — a claim that, the NAACP says, does not comply with EPA regulations.

The original lawsuit filed by the NAACP identified 27 turbines operating without a permit at its Southaven site. But emails between xAI and state regulators, obtained by the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), a partner in the NAACP lawsuit, show that as of mid-May, there were 57 turbines operating without permits at the Colossus 2 site. The emails show that many of those turbines were added weeks after the NAACP filed the lawsuit.

The growth of Colossus 2’s turbines from 27 to 57 means, according to SELC, that the site has seen a 111 percent increase in nitrogen oxide emissions, an 83 percent increase in PM2.5 emissions, and an 88 percent increase in formaldehyde emissions since April.