Poisoning Southwest Memphis

Elon Musk is pumping toxins into a Black community already hard-hit by decades of environmental racism. And this time he can't add a laughing emoji and say it's just a joke.

Elon Musk knows you can't operate a methane generator without a permit in Tennessee.

He especially knows how noxious (and obnoxious) it would be to operate a methane generator without a permit right next to Boxtown, a mostly Black Southwest Memphis community that has endured a long and storied history of environmental racism.

In Southwest Memphis, Musk isn't using a single methane generator. He's using at least 18

As Dara Kerr reported for NPR on September 11, Musk has taken over a former Electrolux manufacturing facility on 217 acres of land, with the possibility of taking over an extra 580 acres. His plan is to build the “world’s largest supercomputer.” He's calling it “Colossus.” It will power Musk’s ambitious AI-startup, xAI.

But as Musk races to build Colossus, he's poisoning Southwest Memphis with a colossal amount of extremely dangerous pollution. Without the legally required permits. (The Environmental Protection Agency told NPR it is “looking into the matter.”)

Writes Kerr:

Alongside the factory are at least 18 portable methane gas generators, which visibly emit a steady stream of hazy smoke into the air. These turbines help fuel the company’s AI.

They started to appear in June and have multiplied over the last couple of months. According to the Southern Environmental Law Center, it’s estimated these generators can provide enough electricity to power 50,000 homes. And they have the capacity to emit 130 tons of harmful nitrogen oxides per year.

The xAI project in Southwest Memphis is just the latest example of Musk's disregard for environmental regulations and the wellbeing of common earthlings.

As Kerr writes:

This isn’t the first time one of Musk’s companies didn’t have permits for high-emissions machinery.

His spaceship company SpaceX was fined for allegedly discharging industrial wastewater numerous times in Texas without a permit... The Boring Co., which is his underground tunneling business, was also fined in Texas for failing to get a permit to discharge industrial stormwater. And his electric car company Tesla was cited by California for 33 air quality violations.

And polluting without a permit is just one of the things Musk does for fun.

As the Musk Industrial Complex expands, his "move fast and break things" approach means many things that Musk touches get noticeably worse while we wait on him to deliver on his promises of making things better.

Environmental concerns repeatedly take a back seat to Musk's ambitions

In Germany: 500,000 trees (813 acres of forest) were destroyed as Musk built his Tesla gigafactory near Berlin.

The Guardian reported in August 2024 that:

Dozens of environmental incidents have been reported at the site – where millions of battery cells are also produced – including leaks or spills of diesel fuel, paint and aluminium.

In Texas: As Musk uses SpaceX to promote a vision of mankind becoming an interplanetary species, the company makes a habit of destroying the only planet we currently have.

In July 2024, The New York Times noted:

When Elon Musk first eyed South Texas for a new base of space operations, he promised that SpaceX would have a small, eco-friendly footprint and that the surrounding area would be “left untouched.”

A decade later, the reality is far different. An investigation by The New York Times shows how SpaceX’s ferocious growth in the area has dramatically changed the fragile landscape and has threatened the habitat that the U.S. government is charged with protecting there.

In May 2023, TIME explored the extent of the environmental damage SpaceX had caused with its exploding spaceships, noting that:

The Starship launch pad was simply not built robustly enough to withstand the blast of the first stage’s 33 engines... Approximately 385 acres of debris was found on both SpaceX’s facility and in the surrounding Boca Chica State Park, and a 3.5-acre fire burned on park land south of the launch site.

Among the wildlife harmed by Musk's devil-may-care approach, were "the endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle" and "ocelots that are sacred to the local Carrizo-Comecrudo native American tribe."

TIME also noted that NASA takes a drastically different approach to environmental protection—one that proves it doesn't have to be done the SpaceX way:

NASA... has long shared its Kennedy Space Center home with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, a preserve that is home to more than 1,500 species of plants and animals. Sixty years and thousands of launches—including 135 of the space shuttle alone and 18 of the massive Saturn 5 rocket—produced nothing like the devastation wrought on the Boca Chica area by just one Starship launch.

Right now, Elon Musk is bringing that same destructive Tesla and SpaceX attitude to the long-suffering residents of South Memphis.

The human cost of Musk's corporate dishonesty and environmental criminality

As NPR's Kerr writes, the "Colossus" project:

Has moved at breakneck speed and has been cloaked in mystery and secrecy... officials from the local utility who were briefed on the project signed nondisclosure agreements... The news dropped on Memphis in a press conference in June that was announced with little notice and caught members of the City Council, environmental agencies and the community off guard.

In the "historically Black neighborhoods" adjacent to Musk's new monstrosity, residents already suffer from "elevated asthma rates and lower life expectancy." Those residents were not informed of what was happening until the deal was done.

“We have been deemed by xAI not even valuable enough to have a conversation with,” says KeShaun Pearson, who grew up a few miles from the facility and is president of the local nonprofit Memphis Community Against Pollution. “To not even be included in conversations about what is transpiring in our own backyards.”

One X user summed it up thus: "More pollution in an overburdened community. Madness."

As Memphis Community Against Pollution wrote on X: "South Memphis faces a health crisis: cancer rates 4x higher than the national average, life expectancy 10 years lower, and failing air quality. This dire situation, worsened by industrial pollution, demands urgent action."

Even before Elon Musk showed up, the American Lung Association had, in 2020, given South Memphis a failing grade for air quality.

And while it's already polluting the air today, Musk's AI data center will also be depleting the local wellfield tomorrow:

When the supercomputer gets to full capacity, the local utility says it’s going to need a million gallons of water per day and 150 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 100,000 homes per year.

And, because data centers need only minimal human supervision, Musk's "Colossus" is not even going to create more than a few jobs in the area.

Currently, (xAI) has 37 job listings and the majority are based in California.

X user @LizForNY writes: "Data centers and crypto mines might be the best example yet of privatizing gains and socializing losses. Few will benefit, most will suffer."

@twkovach puts it this way: "Musk is polluting... an environmental justice area in Memphis so blue check (users on X) can make racist AI art."

And @JustinGee69 sums it up thus: "This is why #FascistMAGAMusk wants Krump to win. Rollback environmental regulations in order to do as he pleases with zero regard to clean air, water, and soil in BIPOC communities. Exploit, Exploit, Exploit!"

With Musk it's all racism, all the time

In a new article for his Nerd Reich newsletter, Gil Duran explores the obsessive lengths Elon Musk is now going to amplify and promote anti-Black racism.

One example: Earlier this year, a small software company called Warp hired some blue-check X users to promote its brand. On September 5, one of these influencers—who used the alias "Vittorio," and the handle of @IterIntellectus—"launched a thermonuclear anti-Black racist rant."

Warp got severely tarnished in the racism scandal, which it handled, Duran reports, very badly.

But Musk managed to come out looking even worse:

Musk's connection to Warp's racist meltdown was more direct. As it turns out, Musk – with his 198 million followers on X – regularly interacts with the racist Vittorio account.

In fact, Musk has personally responded to tweets by Vittorio at least 20 times since July. And the X CEO responded directly to Vittorio's racist thread on Sept. 5!

As Duran explains, "Musk has made toxic politics a core feature of his company brands, and he has clearly inspired others to do the same."

And he just won't stop.

In 2022, he literally posted a picture of a Nazi soldier and urged Americans to vote Republican. Pushing extremist right-wing politics is the reason he bought Twitter in the first place.

These days, Musk posts a constant stream of delirious attacks on Kamala Harris, who would be the first woman of color to serve as president.

Day in, day out, Musk targets Black Americans and other minorities with a steady flow of racist garbage.

As the election approaches, he can often be seen pushing the Great Replacement Theory multiple times a day.

He's doubling down on vicious, racist lies and memes about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, even as children and families are being terrorized by bomb threats and violence.

Musk's attempt to inspire assassination attempts against Biden and Harris prompted WIRED to label him a "national security threat."

Meanwhile, in Southwest Memphis he's pumping out actual toxins—poisoning a Black community that's already been hard-hit by decades of environmental racism.

And this time he can't add a laughing emoji and say it's all just a joke.

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