--- title: Memphis Fights For Clean Air—And Against Elon Musk | TIME canonical: https://time.com/video/CMdSRjBa/ og:title: Memphis Fights For Clean Air—And Against Elon Musk og:url: https://time.com/video/CMdSRjBa/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/CMdSRjBa/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Memphis Fights For Clean Air—And Against Elon Musk twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/CMdSRjBa/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Memphis Fights For Clean Air—And Against Elon Musk > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Memphis Fights For Clean Air—And Against Elon Musk [Watch (HLS stream): Memphis Fights For Clean Air—And Against Elon Musk](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/CMdSRjBa.m3u8) (9:24)  _Published 2025-09-03_ --- Sep 3, 2025 10:22 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Elon Musk Becomes World’s First Trillionaire as SpaceX Launches Largest-Ever Initial Public Offering](/video/cEGpsW9n/) ### Elon Musk Becomes World’s First Trillionaire as SpaceX Launches Largest-Ever Initial Public Offering [Accenture CEO Praises ‘Stargate,’ OpenAI’s New Venture While in Davos](/video/poLsreKc/) ### Accenture CEO Praises ‘Stargate,’ OpenAI’s New Venture While in Davos [U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson Tests Positive for Coronavirus](/video/maPghfBZ/) ### U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson Tests Positive for Coronavirus --- ## Transcript That pollution that is hurting our community, that is quite literally taking the breath from people, right, is to power a racist bot on behalf of the richest man in the world. This is Colossus, a supercomputer that Elon Musk calls the most powerful AI training system in the world. Colossus is fueling Musk's company x AI and its large language model named grok. The data center sits a few miles away from Boxtown, a predominantly black community in Memphis. Some Boxtown residents say that the pollution from the gas turbines that have powered Colossus over the last year is worsening their respiratory issues. You smell like gas now and it didn't smell like gas before Elon came. I literally can taste it. I can taste the difference now. Some local leaders insist that the rewards vastly outweigh any potential risks. They become our largest investor, and short order people are starting to look at Memphis, and we've got this burgeoning reputation as a tech and innovation hub. Building infrastructure for the oligarchy is a really scary path to start walking. And it is sickening that the only way we're going to be able to get any financial benefits from our government is by accepting the death dealing, pollution killing XII plants. Tax money. It'll be a policy of the United States to do whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence. AI is America's newest big industry. Like its predecessors, it uses a lot of resources relying on energy, water, and land. And Elon Musk is at the forefront of America's rush into AI. In 2023, he wanted to build a powerful AI that could compete with cutting edge models like ChatGPT. So he looked for a location to quickly train his AI. The chainsaw for bureaucracy. And found a willing partner in Memphis, a city with deep economic challenges. Origins. On June 5th of last year, 2024, Elon Musk and XII came in and built up methane gas turbines. They did it without any community input, and they did it in a clandestine way to where our elected officials didn't know the project even existed until the day it was announced by the Greater Memphis Chamber. I found out, just like everybody else sitting in my living room, reclined, chilling. And there it was, in my exact words were, wow, the way you conducted business and neglected to get the community involved. Why would I trust you? Musk needed a vast amount of energy to power his data center, but the local utility did not have enough electricity to supply him with. So Xai turned to 35 unpermitted temporary gas turbines, which had been pumping out a level of emissions that, according to environmentalists, mentalist is exacerbating the health issues of an area already crushed by decades of pollution. This area that we're in was also redlined. And so you're going to see a high concentration of black people who live here in those redlined places. They were zoned for industry and heavy industrial uses. This polluter has moved faster, has built bigger, has created even more pollution than any other organization in the city of Memphis. And you did that within 12 months. Our life don't mean a hill of beans to them. They come out here and put more pollution on us. You be breathing. Chemicals smell like, you know, rotten cabbage. I had an asthma attack the other night for the first time in, what, like 15 years, maybe. I couldn't breathe and I was like, momma, I cannot catch my breath. I feel like my chest was caving in. I couldn't catch my breath. I had to use my inhaler twice. Not once, but twice. Our lungs are not for sale. Our lives are not for sale. I mean, it is worrisome that folks are willing to speak so much about, oh, there's all this economic opportunity, but then they ignore all of the health impacts that we're dealing with. XII did not return a request for comment on this story. But some local leaders argue that the financial opportunities from XII are too big to pass up. So we notice walking in that that conference room, says XII. Digital Delta center. Can you tell me about that? Well, let me tell you. We'll put your name on it for a brief sponsorship. Look, we have names over here on the wall, a little sponsorship. We're a chamber of commerce. We don't get funds from local government. So what this project represents for us, it's a wonderful opportunity that's going to be tremendously beneficial to the city. Even when you look at the city's budget, what we anticipate from this company is going to be something that, uh, wow, I can't believe that some percentage of the overall city's budget could be funded by the taxes that will come from the company. We have folks who will go to these community meetings and complain about temporary gas turbines, half of which have already disappeared, and they'll be driving a car where we're smoking like it looks like they're cooking barbecue in the back. And they won't make the connection between the idea that there are some things happening in the community that are of a bigger priority if you really want to get at air quality. And so the disappearing temporary gas turbines and the backup generator gas turbines I would submit to you, my friend, are not the biggest. Fish we have to fry as it relates to us doing a better job with the environment. Well, I respectfully disagree in the sense that by our calculations, they were the biggest fish to fry in terms of being the largest industrial source of smog forming pollutants over the past year. And if they had gotten the appropriate permit at the appropriate time, they would have been required to install pollution controls that would have avoided a lot of unnecessary emissions that can cause real harm to people on the ground. Time asked researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to analyze air quality data from satellites run by NASA and the European Space Agency. Their report showed a marked increase in peak nitrogen dioxide concentration levels in Boxtown and other areas nearby the plant. High levels of Mno2 can aggravate respiratory diseases, particularly asthma, according to the EPA. I've said this even regarding critics. Let's have a conversation another year from now. Let's have a conversation two years from now. But the type of investment and infrastructure they are building out is not the type that you easily leave and go somewhere else. You know, water innovation and water sustainability has not been in the conversation in Memphis really ever. We've got this pure, clean, cheap water body right below our feet and we've used and abused it. A key potential benefit involves water. Data centers use a vast amount of water to cool their computers, and Musk has started work on an $80 million wastewater plant down the road from the facility. The plant would treat sewer water and repurpose it for XYZ uses and allow other entities nearby to stay off the city's aquifer. So having a facility like this, that would actually get some major industrial users off the aquifer and using wastewater that we aren't going to see again is a huge step in the right direction for water sustainability. Pretty much southern half of the county's wastewater comes here. Like, have you been thinking about what it means to get something that you've wanted for so long? But the circumstances are strained, to say the least? Yes. I think, um, building infrastructure for the oligarchy is a really scary path to start walking. I don't support billionaires owning all of our infrastructure. That is a dangerous place to be in, and public interest should not be based on profits. It should be based on our core needs. And one of which is clean drinking water. As President Trump's AI action plan calls for reducing regulations of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act to speed up development of data centers. XAI is building out a second location in Memphis, just a few miles away. That's double the size of the first site. Musk's acceleration is only spurring forward his competitors to build their own big data centers, too. And the Trump administration is cheering them on. If the suffering is happening here, it will happen elsewhere. Air doesn't know any borders. Pollution doesn't know any borders. Clean air is a right for who? Everybody. And we're not going anywhere. We're not going to quit until this issue is resolved. For black people do not have to be treated as gambling chips for massive corporations. It's a unifying issue, and it requires all of us to stand up against the richest man in the world to be able to make mountains move. The people united will never be divided. We'll never be divided. The people united will never be divided. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Memphis Fights For Clean Air—And Against Elon Musk","description":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/CMdSRjBa/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2025-09-03T21:18:50.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/CMdSRjBa.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/CMdSRjBa/","duration":"PT9M24S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/CMdSRjBa/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```