The Dictatorship
Black Memphians refuse to be the collateral damage to Elon Musk’s ‘progress’
Majority-Black communities in Memphis are under threat from Elon Musk’s AI project
We are known as an “asthma capital” in the U.S., and recent statistics found that we had the most asthma-related ER visits in Tennessee.
By Justin J. Pearson, Tennessee state representative
I live 3 miles from xAI’s South Memphis data center, where Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company has been operating dozens of methane gas turbines without critical — and we believe legally required — environmental permits. My neighbors and I are forced to breathe the pollution this company pumps into our air every day. We smell it. We inhale it. This isn’t just an environmental issue — it’s a public health emergency.
This isn’t just an environmental issue — it’s a public health emergency.
Memphis and Shelby County had a pollution crisis long before Musk and xAI powered up Colossus, a massive supercomputer. The American Lung Association gave us an “F” for air quality for four of the last five years, and we got a D the one year we didn’t get an F. We haven’t met federal ozone standards since 2021. We are known as an “asthma capital” in the U.S., and recent statistics found that we had the most asthma-related ER visits in Tennessee.
Now, in response to this growing threat to the air we breathe, we’re fighting back. Last week, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) sent xAI a notice of intent to sue on behalf of the NAACPa notice that is mandatory under the Clean Air Act. This action is about justice, transparency and our human right to breathe clean air.
Together, the turbines at the xAI data center have a generating capacity that SELC says rivals that of a regional Tennessee Valley Authority power plant. Despite claims from the Shelby County Health Department, the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce and xAI that permits aren’t required for the turbines’ first year of use and xAI’s assertion that it is “operating in compliance with applicable laws,” SELC, which performed a thorough analysis of the turbine models’ specifications and applicable environmental lawdisagrees. It believes xAI’s turbines are stationary engines and therefore require an air permit. SELC asked the county Health Department to shut down the turbines and explain where SELC’s legal opinion is wrong. These requests have not been met.
This is not minor. These permitting requirements exist to protect communities from exposure to hazardous emissions.
City officials celebrate xAI’s arrival as an economic win as they downplay the serious health and environmental risks and impacts.
E&E News reported in May, citing the data from environmental groups it had reviewed, “In just 11 months since the company arrived in Memphis, xAI has become one of Shelby County’s largest emitters of smog-producing nitrogen oxides.” Smog is linked to increased rates of asthma and respiratory illnesses. Rather than halt operations, xAI is now asking the Health Department to approve a permit that would allow it to permanently operate 15 gas turbines 24/7.
When 35 turbines were photographed at the site in March, far more than what had been reported, I asked Memphis Mayor Paul Young about them, and he told me only 14 turbines were active and that the rest were being stored there. SELC, however, used thermal imaging to determine that at least 33 turbines were in use. Mayor Young has dismissed xAI’s emissions as “minimal,” despite estimates that the turbines emit 1,200 to 2,000 tons of smog-forming NOx annually. City officials celebrate xAI’s arrival as an economic win as they downplay the serious health and environmental risks and impacts.
An example of this is the irresponsible pollution report the city of Memphis released Tuesday. According to the report, unspecified air monitors were placed in two areas in southwest Memphis and at City Hall downtown on two different days for less than 12 hours each day. The minuscule nature of the testing notwithstanding, the data did not include any testing results for ground-level ozone or smog.
According to AirNowthe federal government’s website that is home to the U.S. Air Quality Index, ground-level ozone, a major component of smog, is one of five major pollutants the Environmental Protection Agency measures to establish a particular community’s air quality index. Still, the city described its limited findings as “definitive and reassuring.” We deserve better than such misleading reports sanctioned by our mayor.
This pollution isn’t impacting majority-white suburbs in East Memphis or Collierville. It’s impacting South Memphis, a historically redlined, majority-Black, working-class community long targeted for industrial zoning. Our neighborhoods have been burdened for generations by landfills, chemical plants and toxic industries. xAI’s turbines continue that legacy. Once again, our health is being threatened for someone else’s profit.
When children in our community struggle to breathe, when our elders are rushed to the ER during Code Orange air days, we’re told this is the cost of economic progress. But we refuse to allow our lives to be collateral damage for this so-called “progress.”
We refuse to allow our lives to be collateral damage for this so-called “progress.”
Now xAI is expanding. The company recently acquired 100 acres and a 1 million-square-foot warehouse in Whitehaven — another majority-Black Memphis neighborhood — to house a second data center just 8 miles from Colossus and a half-mile from John P. Freeman Schoolattended by students in grades K-8. Although the Memphis Chamber of Commerce claims xAI will not use turbines at the site, according to SELC, the permit application xAI affiliate CTC Property submitted on behalf of xAI to the EPA contemplates operating 40 to 90 gas turbines at the site. Independent filings and local reporting also suggest the company may partner with a new corporate entity, Stateline Power Solutions, to place these turbines in Southavenabout a mile from the Whitehaven facility.
Pollution does not stop at state lines. I recently joined Southaven faith leaders and political leaders to speak out against this expansion. We deserve clean air whether we are in Tennessee, Mississippi or Arkansas, and this project threatens it.
The truth is out. The people are watching. And we are demanding accountability. The people of South Memphis and Southaven deserve better. We deserve leaders who protect our right to clean air — not ones who excuse corporate pollution. We deserve a permitting process that upholds the law — not one that allows flagrant violations to go unchallenged.
To the Shelby County Health Department and elected officials: Deny the permit. Do not reward what we believe to be illegal activity. Do not validate secrecy. Do not let our communities pay the price for a billionaire’s ambition.
Deny the permit, protect the people and deliver justice. Our people-powered movement is not going anywhere. We will stand as Davids against Goliath and win.
Justin J. Pearson
Justin J. Pearson represents the 86th District in the Tennessee House of Representatives.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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