SpaceX and Elon Musk the giant company that launches rockets and operates data centers is scheduled to go public on Friday with a target valuation of more than $1.75 trillion. This move will make Musk, already the richest man in the world, much richer.
The IPO will allow SpaceX to raise even more money to fund its artificial intelligence ambitions, including building more data centers faster.
But even as Musk and other SpaceX investors see a huge windfall, the community hosting xAI data centers already in operation is demanding accountability for the company’s employ of polluting gas turbines and a water treatment plant, which was mothballed earlier this year.
“We are an extracted and exploited colony of what will be one of the most valued entities in the world,” says Justin Pearson, who represents part of Memphis in the Tennessee House of Representatives. “People will die from this pollution.”
xAI sells $15 billion a year in computing solutions at its Memphis campuses to Anthropic, another company planning a blockbuster IPO in the coming months. “People don’t matter to SpaceX or Anthropic or whoever is building these data centers,” Pearson says.
President Donald Trump has suggested that the U.S. government could take a financial stake in pioneering artificial intelligence companies to begin “giving back” to the American public. However, it is unclear what form this would take or whether such a move would even occur.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment and Anthropic declined to comment, although the public policy chief and the mayor of Memphis declined praised the company’s commitment with the city.
xAI’s Colossus 1 campus in Memphis gained national notoriety in 2024 when community members began sounding the alarm that the company was operating natural gas turbines without permits. Regulators said a loophole in the Neat Air Act allowed xAI to operate what appeared there are to be as many as 35 turbines without a permit per year. (Last year, local regulators gave xAI permission to operate 15 turbines in the area until 2027.)
Natural gas turbines emit microscopic fine dust particles called PM2.5, which are linked to: various health problemsincluding heart attacks, high blood pressure and premature deaths in people with pre-existing conditions. Experts warn that PM2.5 pollution can be harmful even below levels set by regulators.
The first xAI data center was built in Boxtown, a historically black neighborhood in Memphis that already has some highest asthma rate in the country from older industrial pollutants.
“Any of us who have family in South Memphis know someone who died from a bronchial disease or a random cancer that has no place in our family tree,” says Richard Massey, a Memphis community organizer.
In January, the Environmental Protection Agency issued guidance that seemed to close a loophole in the Neat Air Act that xAI had been exploiting to run its turbines without permits. But the company had already begun installing unauthorized turbines in Southaven, Mississippi, to power Colossus 2. By mid-May, the company had imported at least 46 unauthorized gas turbines to operate at the site, according to emails sent to regulators.
A group of environmental justice organizations led by the NAACP filed a lawsuit against xAI earlier this year, alleging that the company installed gas turbines “without a flight permit or without regard to the health and safety of people living nearby.” Earlier this week, Southaven residents filed a separate class action lawsuit against xAI and SpaceX, alleging that the data center construction is disrupting the community.