Is Musk running an illegal power plant? The DOJ says it might weigh in.

The United States government is preparing for a possible intervention to help defend Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company from a lawsuit that accuses the company of illegally operating gas turbines to power a large data center in Mississippi, court filings showed.

The NAACP sued Musk’s company, xAI, which powers the Grok chatbot, last month, claiming that the company was operating 27 gas turbines without an air permit in Southaven, Mississippi. It effectively built a power plant for its Colossus 2 data center, sending pollution into nearby neighbourhoods, the NAACP claimed.

The AI company, now owned by Musk’s space venture SpaceX, has consistently said that its turbines are mobile and temporary, and thus exempt from more stringent air permitting. It has also pointed out that gas turbines are a cleaner alternative to other forms of power, like coal or diesel generators.

Now, the Justice Department is preparing for a possible intervention in support of Musk.

“It is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security,” Adam R F Gustafson, principal deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, wrote in a court filing posted late Wednesday.

The federal government was seeking “an opportunity to intervene where a ruling or decree would be inconsistent” with the government’s policies, he wrote. He asked that the court, the US District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, provide the government with more time for it to evaluate the lawsuit.

And he referred to an executive order issued by President Donald Trump just days into his administration that called for an acceleration of AI development by US tech companies.

The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment. The company couldn’t be reached for comment.

In its lawsuit, the NAACP, the nation’s largest civil rights organization, alleges that xAI and its subsidiary, MZX Tech, installed 27 unpermitted gas turbines to power huge data centers, potentially emitting 1,700 tons of smog-forming pollution a year near a predominantly Black community.

Gas turbines can emit smog-forming pollution, as well as soot and hazardous chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene, which are linked to asthma, respiratory diseases and other health problems.

Since then, xAI has added more generators, bringing the number of mobile gas turbines operating at its site to nearly 50, according to a May 6 email sent by a company representative to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and reviewed by The New York Times.

The NAACP argues in its lawsuit that the generators are illegal stationary sources of air pollution that bypass mandatory health protections and pollution controls. It is asking the court to declare that xAI has violated the Clean Air Act and to force xAI to stop operating the turbines in question until it can go through the proper permitting process.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, which represents the NAACP, declined to comment.