Elon Musk has officially left the Trump administration, but his business with the U.S. isn’t done. One venture includes a $12 billion private investment in South Memphis, promising to create hundreds of jobs — and damage the city.
City council members weren’t even informed of the details. But the reveal came that Musk was the mysterious investor building a supercomputer through his corporation called xAI. His goal to create “the world’s most sophisticated artificial intelligence model” includes Colossus, which now powers X’s chatbot Grok, and soon Colossus 2. According to the Washington Post, one gigawatt of xAI power equals 30% of “electricity used by the entire county of roughly 910,000 people on its hottest summer days.”
The supercomputer’s methane gas turbines will pollute a Black American community already suffering from environmental racism, viewed as an acceptable dumping ground for the “ugly” parts of technological innovation. A similar view affects the African workers “systemically abuse[d] and exploit[ed]” to train AI.
Resistance to environmental racism, however, is not acceptable to the state. The criminal legal system has historically targeted, abused, and incarcerated environmental advocates, from Stop Cop City to the Standing Rock protests. If Musk violates the Clean Air Act, how long will he continue to get away with polluting our communities while the system punishes civilians without the same wealth and corporate interests for much less?
The richest man in the world satisfies his greed at the expense of Black communities. Prepare to support the people of Memphis as they resist his destruction, and potentially face state-sanctioned consequences.