Getting mental health care covered by insurance can be really tough. Reporters spoke to hundreds of therapists who left their insurance networks to find out why. NPR requested these contracts and a spokesperson said to file a public records request. NPR’s subsequent public records request was denied on account of not being a citizen of Tennessee. Cooper-Sutton says she eventually met with representatives from xAI and the chamber, but still doesn’t have concrete answers around how this project came about, the timeline of events and why the city of Memphis wasn’t made aware of the deal before it was set. She says she asked to meet with Musk, since he’s the head of xAI, but is still waiting for that to happen. “I have an old saying from my grandparents: What it won’t get in the wash, it’ll take care of in the rinse,” she says. “So, if there’s any secrets and if there’s a dead cat on the line — it’ll soon show up.” “Southwest Memphis is ground zero” One mile from xAI, across a stretch of the Mississippi floodplain and a thicket of towering hardwood forest, is one of Memphis’ oldest neighborhoods. It’s called Boxtown. The southwest Memphis community was first started in the aftermath of the Civil War by formerly enslaved people. They later built homes from leftover boxcars. Boxtown still houses the oldest church in Memphis. Today, it’s a leafy neighborhood that has the feel of a tight-knit community. It’s sprinkled with modest brick and wood-paneled homes that have tidy yards. Some hang American flags out front; others have charcoal smokers. KeShaun Pearson grew up nearby and has spent a lot of time here. He’s 35 years old, tall and lean. Pearson is also disarmingly friendly, speaking to every stranger he comes across. As he slowly drives through Boxtown, he points things out. There’s the community garden and a tiny white house that looks like it could almost be original architecture. “My grandmother is buried down that road,” he says. “God rest her soul.” Both of Pearson’s grandmothers died of cancer in their 60s and he’s convinced it had to do with living in South Memphis. KeShaun Pearson in Boxtown, the neighborhood where his grandmother is buried. (Ariel J. Cobbert | for NPR) The cancer rate in South Memphis is four times higher than the national average, according to a ProPublica report. And a 2020 University of Memphis study found the life expectancy here is 10 years lower than other parts of the city. South Memphis also has elevated asthma rates, and the American Lung Association gave it a failing grade for air quality. Experts say this is largely due to the neighborhood’s proximity to Memphis’ industrial zone. Down the road from xAI, there’s a decommissioned coal plant where the city is still dealing with issues from coal ash, and there’s a steel mill, an oil refinery, a wastewater facility and the state’s power plant. It’s common for the county health department to issue “code orange” ozone alerts here. This means ozone levels exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety standards and sensitive groups, like adults with respiratory issues and children, shouldn’t go outside. “They have a very serious air pollution problem,” says Garcia from the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Southwest Memphis is ground zero.” Garcia, Pearson and other environmental justice advocates fear that xAI will add to the pollution burden of this already overburdened community, because of its high demand for energy. They say it’s particularly concerning that the project has had little government oversight and the community has been left out of the process. “It’s frustrating because it could be better,” Pearson says. “The dissonance of having essentially the future of technology powered by fossil fuels is, you know, it just leaves me speechless.” xAI adds gas generators without a permit The factory that xAI now inhabits sits on 217 acres of land and has the possibility to add an additional 580 acres. The main building is 785,000 square feet (roughly the size of 13 football fields) and comes with a cooling tower, heavy electrical power feeds and is fully air-conditioned. Phoenix Investors, which is leasing the site to xAI, didn’t respond to a request for comment. Alongside the factory are at least 18 portable methane gas generators, which visibly emit a steady stream of hazy smoke into the air. These turbines help fuel the company’s AI. They started to appear in June and have multiplied over the last couple of months. According to the Southern Environmental Law Center, it’s estimated these generators can provide enough electricity to power 50,000 homes. And they have the capacity to emit 130 tons of harmful nitrogen oxides per year, potentially making them a major source of the pollutant in Memphis. xAI doesn’t have air permits for these turbines, according to the Shelby County Health Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. The county health department told NPR that it only regulates gas-burning generators if they’re in the same location for more than 364 days. “Given the mobile nature of the gas-turbines in question … [the health department] does not have current permitting authority,” a spokeswoman wrote in an email. She said this is the Environmental Protection Agency’s jurisdiction. The Environmental Protection Agency told NPR it hasn’t issued air permits for these turbines, but after getting inquiries from media outlets and citizen groups it’s “looking into the matter.” LaTricea Adams founded Young, Gifted & Green, which works on environmental justice and climate change issues in Black and brown communities. (Ariel J. Cobbert | for NPR) LaTricea Adams is from South Memphis and says she was shocked to hear about the generators. She’s a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and founder of the nonprofit Young, Gifted & Green. “Now you have turbines, but you don’t have an air permit. Like, in what universe is that acceptable?” she says. “It’s like the Spider-Man meme, where everybody’s pointing at each other, but the community is who’s losing.” This isn’t the first time one of Musk’s companies didn’t have permits for high-emissions machinery. His spaceship company SpaceX was fined for allegedly discharging industrial wastewater numerous times in Texas without a permit, according to a spokesperson for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. This was first reported by CNBC. The Boring Co., which is his underground tunneling business, was also fined in Texas for failing to get a permit to discharge industrial stormwater. And his electric car company Tesla was cited by California for 33 air quality violations. “There’s a way to do this right,” says Adams. “I don’t think that all is lost, but it’s going to take all of the powers that be to be more transparent and make this mutually beneficial.” Artificial intelligence puts a strain on the grid On a sweltering August day, KeShaun Pearson drives down the flat road to xAI. As he pulls up, he points across the street to a multibuilding power plant owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority. This is the state utility that ultimately has to approve xAI’s power plan. Typically, data centers the size of xAI have to wait years before they can get on the grid, according to a report by Bloomberg. That’s because utilities need to ensure that the facilities won’t strain the grid for residents and other customers. xAI has already gotten the go-ahead for 50 megawatts of electricity from MLGW. But it’s requesting 100 megawatts more — enough to power tens of thousands of homes — and for that, xAI needs Tennessee Valley Authority’s approval. A spokesman for the utility says it’s reviewing xAI’s electricity demands and is waiting for more information from the company. This weekend, the @xAI team brought our Colossus 100k H100 training cluster online. From start to finish, it was done in 122 days. Colossus is the most powerful AI training system in the world. Moreover, it will double in size to 200k (50k H200s) in a few months. Excellent…