The Trump administration filed court papers urging a federal judge to dismiss a Clean Air Act lawsuit against Elon Musk's xAI Corp., arguing that shutting down the company's power supply would threaten national security. The move puts the federal government on the side of a private company facing pollution allegations from one of the country's oldest civil rights organizations.
According to a report by Ars Technica, the NAACP sued xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech in April, alleging that the companies operated 27 gas turbines without an air permit in Southaven, Mississippi. By mid-May, that number had grown to 57 unpermitted turbines, and the NAACP said in a June 12 filing that plans existed to install two more.
The lawsuit described the setup directly. "Defendants' Colossus Gas Plant powers xAI's nearby Colossus 2 data center, which in turn powers the chatbot 'Grok,'" the NAACP filing said. Residents near the site raised both health concerns and noise complaints about the turbines.
US Department of Justice lawyers filed papers the day before this report, telling the court the case should be dismissed. The filing argued that the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality had already determined the turbines do not require permits. It also framed the lawsuit as a broader threat to technology development. The lawsuit "threaten[s] artificial-intelligence innovation, plus the energy needed to power it," the US filing said. "The NAACP's attempt to cut off the power that supports Grok also threatens national security because… Grok provides critical support for the Department of War's military operations."
The national security claim rested on a declaration from Cameron Stanley, chief digital and artificial intelligence officer for the Department of War. Stanley wrote that the Grok Gov Model aided targeted strikes in Iran. Grok was used with Maven Smart System to help US forces "deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury, a testament to the greatly increased operational efficiency made possible by the Grok Gov Model," according to Stanley's declaration. He also wrote that the Grok Gov Model has unique features not found in any other AI model.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, which represents the NAACP in the case, rejected the government's reasoning. The US is arguing "that xAI should be allowed to break the law solely because the Trump administration says so," the SELC said.
The case centers on a legal question about whether unpermitted gas turbines in a residential area fall under Clean Air Act requirements, but the government's filing has shifted the argument into the territory of artificial intelligence policy and military necessity. The federal judge has not yet ruled on the dismissal request.
The NAACP's original filing in April started with 27 turbines. The growth to 57 by mid-May, with more planned, forms part of the group's argument that the situation is ongoing and expanding rather than a fixed condition already reviewed by state regulators.
