Overview:
Memphis officials have delayed a decision on whether to halt new data center construction for one year. Residents concerned about pollution from Musk's AI operations say the city needs to act.
Eager to learn if elected officials would hit the brakes on Elon Musk’s plans to expand his data center empire in their city, residents filled a Memphis City Council meeting early last month, hoping it would finally address a problem that has disproportionately harmed Black neighborhoods.
But when the council postponed the decision, frustration boiled over into pandemonium: audience members yelled at council members, council members shouted back, then hurled insults at each other. As police cleared the chamber, fights broke out outside.
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Since then, the meeting has gone viral: news outlets from TMZ to FOX News have picked up the story, elevating the data center moratorium issue.
The bottom line: Memphians will have to wait a little longer to find out whether the City Council will pause new data center construction for one year. After voting 7-5 to postpone the decision, the council is set to try again on Oct. 20.
National Test Case
KeShaun Pearson, executive director of Memphis Community Against Pollution, told the Commercial Appeal newspaper that the situation shows there are “seven City Council members who think we don’t deserve clean air.”
“We deserve justice and a moratorium now,” he said.
At issue is Musk’s rapid construction of massive SpaceXAI data centers — and dozens of gas-powered generators to supply them with electricity — in Memphis’s predominantly Black neighborhoods. Those communities already are heavily burdened by industrial air pollution; experts say emissions from Musk’s turbines add to the problem, and residents believe a moratorium can stop further harm, at least temporarily.
We deserve justice and a moratorium now.
KeShaun Pearson, executive director, Memphis Community Against Pollution
Part of the SpaceXAI Colossus operation sits in Boxtown, a historic Black community in South Memphis founded by freedmen in 1863. To power Colossus, Musk’s company installed nearly 70 natural gas-fired turbines without first obtaining air permits, prompting complaints about potential health effects in surrounding neighborhoods.
‘He Brings Up Mess’
The controversy has since become a national test case for a larger question shadowing AI’s explosive growth: whether predominantly Black communities, already disproportionately burdened with warehouses and factories, will once again bear the environmental costs of a lucrative new industry.
The yearlong moratorium was proposed last month, shortly after Musk announced he would build yet another data center on land his company already owns in Whitehaven.
It’s unclear who instigated the conflict at the meeting in early October.
Council member Yolanda Cooper-Sutton yelled at organizers in the audience and seemed frustrated with Council member J.B. Smiley, who first proposed the moratorium and had encouraged supporters to attend the meeting in anticipation of a final decision on the measure.
“That’s all [Smiley] does; he brings up mess,” Cooper-Sutton said. “That’s all you do, J.B. Smiley — confuse the people over, over, over and over!”
While Cooper-Sutton voted with the majority to delay the third and final reading of the moratorium, she has supported the moratorium in the past. She co-sponsored the moratorium in August with Smiley and council Chair Jana Swearengen-Washington.
‘We Just Have to Listen’
Cooper-Sutton also has been a vocal critic of SpaceXAI since the company first arrived in Memphis. In a 2025 committee meeting, she scolded Brent Mayo, SpaceXAI’s chief representative.
“We want to do good business with people,” Cooper-Sutton said then. “Your boss does not do good business.”
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It’s unclear why Cooper-Sutton supported delaying the vote on the moratorium when her fellow co-sponsors didn’t.
“When the community shows up, we just have to listen to them,” Smiley said after the meeting.. “I’m disappointed that we didn’t listen with ears: ‘OK, I hear you, I understand. Let’s figure out how we can do what you want, but also what we believe would be in the best interest of the community.’”
