The Trump administration has asked a federal judge to block an NAACP lawsuit regarding emissions tied to data centers powering Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI. The lawsuit alleges that the company is illegally running dozens of natural gas turbines without permits to power a $20 billion data center in Mississippi.
The Department of Justice is seeking to quash the suit, arguing that the power plant running the xAI data center aids national security. The government states that the Mississippi facility supports the training and development of new AI models that the administration relies on for national-security purposes.
In its request to the court, the government argued that the case pits executive power against limits on citizen enforcement of environmental laws. The NAACP's lawsuit specifically claims that xAI is using gas turbines without proper permits for the Grok data center.