Musk is AI companies being sued, this time for polluting black neighborhoods. As a reminder, here's representative Justin Pearson laying out how data centers have continued to spew toxic pollutants into black neighborhoods near Memphis. Ted Townsend is the CEO of the Greater [00:00:19] Memphis Chamber, and he has been the biggest proponent of XAI polluting our community and hurting our community more than anybody else. And we just got to go through this. Let's unpack these comments. First of all, we're not talking about there being instances of environmental [00:00:35] injustice. We are talking about a decades long history of environmental racism and environmental injustice happening in Memphis and Shelby County, particularly in the 38109 community where there are over 17 toxic release inventory facilities. We're talking about a community where the cancer [00:00:53] rate is 4.1 times the national average and where people like Ted Townsend continue to invite industry into our communities, polluting our air, polluting our water, polluting our lungs without our consent and without our permission. Next, he's out here saying that they're doing [00:01:10] above and beyond what's expected of them. Lying to us? Let's talk about the fact that they said there are gonna be 15 gas turbines there, but we were able to find with the work of the Southern Environmental Law Center that there are actually 35. and we're able to take thermal [00:01:25] images of at least 33 of those in operation. What's expected of them, they're going above and beyond. The expectations that people like Ted Townsend, the Memphis Chamber, and too many leaders have had is that our lives are not valuable and do not deserve protecting. [00:01:43] I love that last part. This is actually about life or death, life and death. If you, they've already crept up on us folks, it's here. They got a head start and we've got to get them out of here. The new lawsuit accuses Elon Musk as artificial intelligence company, XAI of [00:02:06] illegally spewing toxic pollutants into residential neighborhoods on the border of Tennessee and Mississippi. The suit. Filed Tuesday, Mississippi Federal Court alleges XAI is violating the Clean Air Act due to emissions from its makeshift power plant in South Haven, Mississippi, which [00:02:23] powers its data center there. You notice these things are never in Malibu, right? NAACP, represented by the environmental groups Southern Environmental Law Center and Earth Justice says XAI has been polluting areas with homes, schools, churches, including in historically black communities. [00:02:43] by using dozens of methane gas generators without permits. Organization is seeking to force the company to stop operating its unpermitted turbines in South Aden. Data centers should not be a potential death sentence for a community's health. Aver Conner, director of environmental and [00:03:03] climate justice for the NAACP said in a statement, by looking to evade clean air laws to operate dirty turbines, that emit pollution, known carcinogens. These companies are following a shameful familiar pattern, asking black and frontline communities to bear the toxic brunt [00:03:24] of innovation. XAI has two data centers in the region, nicknamed Colossus and Colossus II. It's just so disrespectful to even give them a nickname. It's just disrespectful. These [00:03:39] are massive facilities with the latter occupying Well, it looks like two football fields in South Dayton. Colossus is located in Tennessee in Memphis's industrial zone and a few miles from residential [00:03:56] neighborhoods that have long dealt with harmful pollution, including Foxtown. That's a neighborhood that was established by formerly enslaved people after emancipation in the 19th century. And ACP's lawsuit alleges XAI illegally installed and operated up to 27 gas turbines, each one [00:04:15] the size of a large bus to power its data center in South Haven. The group claims Colossus II has the capacity to emit more than 1,700 tons of harmful nitrogen oxides per year along with [00:04:31] toxic chemicals like formaldehyde. The Guardian, with some of the reporting here, black residents still make up a large portion of the Memphis area neighborhoods which have faced higher rates of asthma, respiratory diseases, as well as lower life expectancy than other parts of [00:04:48] the city. Studies have likewise shown These neighborhoods have a cancer risk that is four times the national average. So this is real life again, right? The movie Aaron Brockovich, [00:05:06] that was based on real life circumstances. People dying, black and brown people, poor white people dying, because menaces to society like Elon Musk. care about profits. They would not dare live next to something like this, but they don't care if your poor butts do. Sometimes when [00:05:27] I think about the damage billionaires, particularly as the face of this kind of damage, Elon Musk, Elliot do, it reminds me of a Biggie Smalls lyric. I believe it was his song Respect, where [00:05:44] there's a line in there. Biggie's talking about the day he was born and the doctor looked at him and said, it was mama, he's gonna be a bad boy. It seems to me like Elon Musk was born just to do harm. He literally is here to do harm. Everything he touches, there's a pain [00:06:06] point or perhaps worse than pain, pain and death for people, pain and suffering for certain communities. If he doesn't give a damn. But of course, this was all in the plan, Project 2025 and everything else, and deregulation and firing all the people who maybe would, there [00:06:22] weren't enough to be in with, be able to look at some of this and say, whoa, whoa, we gotta pump the brakes here and do things somewhat responsibly. What say you? Yeah, Elon Musk is sort of I think like uh archetypal edge lord or like a 14 year old who, now my computer's [00:06:38] going off. He's like an archetypal edge lord that basically took some sort of potion and stayed 14 years old emotionally for the rest of his life. But the whole data center thing is gonna be a nightmare more so I think than it already is because this is just starting. I think there was a Harvard. uh economist in 2025 that said the first half of 2025, the [00:06:59] US's GDP, 99 % of GDP growth was a result of data centers and investment in this infrastructure. So our entire economy is kind of propped up on this, but they sell these small communities on the idea that these are going to somehow increase or improve their economy. But the reality is that these things are totally empty. So the only jobs that come out of agreeing [00:07:18] to these contracts are essentially either short lived or janitorial and menial tasks with very few protections and very few instances of job security. anyway you dice this for people, the poor people, poor white people, poor black people are going to end up taking the brunt [00:07:35] of this. And yeah, it is so a bunch of people who are, think, incredibly old teenagers with a lot of money can make a little bit more. And it's gonna be really, really bad environmentally and economically, I think, in the coming decades. And there's just something that jumps out at [00:07:51] me. know, so many of these, because people love money so much and they see, once you have money, you're instantly supposed to be respected. But I just look at this group of people collectively, not all of them, I guess Warren Buffett's decent, maybe. Robert Smith, he paid for people's college [00:08:10] and stuff, he's a billionaire. But I just think they're so stupid. At the end of the day, you can't wall yourself off. There's not enough security gates and guards and whatever from this kind of pollution. It's not like it's just, yes, it's concentrated in certain neighborhoods, [00:08:31] a certain demographic, but it's going to get to you in Malibu. There's a, what did they call that garbage patch in the middle of the ocean? There's several of them now that are miles and deep and oh, it's so gross. I'm fascinated with that. watched these documentaries. It's [00:08:47] going to reach you. It's going to affect you too. Maybe one day this whole thing goes away because of this. Do you think that you'll be like the boy in the bubble or something and you'll just exist while the rest of us are gone? It's just fascinating, bizarre and sick. And [00:09:05] thank you to any politician who's using their voice for good. Dark money will come for you, but you're still doing it. To say no, raise the alarm bells on this one.