Source : TechCrunch
SOUTHAVEN, Mississippi, October 30, 2026 – A federal judge in Mississippi has refused to throw out a lawsuit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) that accuses Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI of running gas turbines to power its data centre without the air permits the law requires.
Chief US District Judge Debra M. Brown of the Northern District of Mississippi denied the motion to dismiss filed by X.AI Corp. and its subsidiary MZX Tech LLC in a 28-page opinion and order filed on Friday, October 30, as reported by TechCrunch. xAI is now owned by SpaceX.
The case, filed on April 14, 2026, by the NAACP and its Mississippi State Conference, centres on a power plant made up of gas-fired combustion turbines in DeSoto County, Mississippi, which supplies electricity to xAI’s Colossus 2 data centre in the Memphis area. The Southern Environmental Law Center, which is representing the NAACP, said the company had installed and operated at least 35 combustion turbines and other sources of air pollution at the site without obtaining the necessary construction or operating air permits. The plaintiffs say this breaches the Clean Air Act and Mississippi’s State Implementation Plan.
xAI had argued that the turbines did not need permits because they were mobile, and that the plaintiffs had no standing to bring the case. It also argued that the Clean Air Act provision allowing citizens to sue was unconstitutional.
Judge Brown rejected all three arguments. “Because the plaintiffs have statutory standing under the Clean Air Act, because the combustion turbines are not ‘mobile sources’ under Mississippi’s SIP, and because the citizen suit provision does not violate Article II of the Constitution or the private nondelegation doctrine, the plaintiffs’ claims will proceed,” she wrote.
On the constitutional question, the judge said that citizen plaintiffs act for themselves rather than for the government. “Because citizen suit plaintiffs sue on their own behalf, in their own name, and seek penalties that redress harm to themselves, they are not exercising the federal government’s executive power,” she wrote.
The ruling also noted that Mississippi’s environmental regulator had told the companies it considered the turbines exempt from permits, but found that this did not stop the plaintiffs from arguing otherwise or bind the court to that view.
The decision follows an earlier setback for the defence side. On October 19, the same court allowed the United States, acting for the Environmental Protection Agency, to join the case, but refused its request to dismiss the lawsuit, ruling that the Clean Air Act does not let the government end a citizen suit on its own over the plaintiffs’ objection.
Abre’ Connor, the NAACP’s director of environmental and climate justice, called the ruling “another important victory in our effort to hold xAI accountable”. “The courts have repeatedly rejected attempts by xAI and the DOJ to dismiss the NAACP’s Clean Air Act case, affirming our right to pursue justice for communities impacted by pollution,” Connor said. “Our position has been clear: xAI cannot operate gas turbines without the required permits.”
TechCrunch said it had asked SpaceX for comment. The case comes as opposition to large data centres grows in the United States, with New York recently passing a moratorium on new data centres and other state and local governments weighing similar steps, according to TechCrunch.
Source: TechCrunch on X
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