{"id":664,"date":"2026-06-20T11:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T11:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=664"},"modified":"2026-06-20T11:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T11:37:09","slug":"grok-is-more-important-than-clean-air-doj-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=664","title":{"rendered":"Grok Is More Important Than Clean Air, DOJ Says"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Elon<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The federal government<\/span> intervened Monday in a Clean Air Act lawsuit in which people in Memphis, Tennessee, and Southaven, Mississippi, are suing Elon Musk\u2019s xAI over the health risks posed by the company\u2019s unpermitted gas turbines.<\/p>

Read more Report: ICE Caused Humanitarian Crisis in Minnesota<\/a><\/p>\n

The Department of Justice didn\u2019t intervene on behalf of the people breathing dirty air, though: instead, it submitted an unprecedented motion backing xAI.<\/p>\n

The suit, filed by NAACP lawyers, contends that in civil penalties for violating the Clean Air Act. DOJ is pushing for the suit to be thrown out\u2014not on the facts of the case, but because, the agency claims, Americans need Elon Musk\u2019s Grok chatbot for our continued safety. <\/p>\n

xAI\u2019s massive Colossus 2 data center, in the Memphis area, was built primarily to train Grok models\u2014new iterations of the AI that might be best known for calling itself \u201cMechaHitler.\u201d And it has onsite dozens of unpermitted gas turbines to serve its massive energy needs. Colossus 2\u2019s power plant constitutes one of the largest industrial sources of smog-forming nitrogen oxides in the nation, able to emit well over 5,000 tons per year. People living near the site say they\u2019re plagued with poor air quality and constant noise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t live like this. I don\u2019t really know what my options are other than to get out of there,\u201d said Jason Haley, who lives near one of xAI\u2019s Memphis-area sites, to the local Fox News affiliate. He described constant whirring noises from the data center. \u201cBut, with that being said, I don\u2019t know who would be willing to purchase that house if they come and look at it and that\u2019s what they\u2019re hearing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGrok\u2019s continued operation and availability is a matter of paramount national security,\u201d the filing said, especially \u201cin the event of armed conflict\u201d\u2014adding that the Department of War used Grok to \u201cdeploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cameron Stanley, the Pentagon\u2019s AI chief, added in a declaration that \u201cIf xAI is hindered from continuing to improve and upgrade Grok\u2026DoW\u2019s ability to meet its national security mission and keep pace with adversaries will be impaired.\u201d The Pentagon has paid Musk\u2019s company at least $200 million for use of the chatbot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But according to Laura Thoms, who worked at the Department of Justice for 19 years before moving to the advocacy group Earthjustice, the DOJ\u2019s action\u2014directly inserting itself into a case on behalf of a corporation\u2014is likely unprecedented. (Earthjustice is part of the suit against xAI, alongside the Southern Environmental Law Center and the NAACP.)<\/p>

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\u201cIn my experience, I have never known the government to intervene on behalf of the defendant to argue that enforcement shouldn\u2019t happen at all,\u201d Thoms said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re saying that when we, the federal government, decide that a company should be able to continue violating for whatever reason, there\u2019s nothing anyone can do about it\u2014not the communities that are impacted by the pollution, not the courts, not even Congress,\u201d Thoms added, calling the move a \u201cpower grab\u2026to decide who has to comply with the law and who can be given a free pass,\u201d undercutting one of the main tools communities have against corporate pollution.<\/p>\n

Throughout the 20th century, under the legal doctrine of \u201csovereign immunity,\u201d the federal government has historically exempted military bases from much pollution regulation by citing the primacy of national security. Bases like Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, Florida have leaked volatile organic compounds, jet fuel, and heavy metals into nearby groundwater, rendering them what Abre\u2019 Connor, of the NAACP, calls \u201csacrifice zones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018National security\u2019 has also been a frequent refrain of the Trump administration\u2019s attempts to ramp up fossil fuel extraction, said Kym Meyer of the Southern Environmental Law Center. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen, in this administration, national security used as a way to speed up permitting reviews for pipelines, to fast-track oil drilling, and to essentially eliminate all the environmental checks that are usually in place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it means that opposition to potential environmentally-destructive projects can be cast as anti-American. That\u2019s increasingly the case with data center developments across the United States, not just those pushed by Musk or xAI. Developer and celebrity investor Kevin O\u2019Leary, in Utah, dismissed his critics as Chinese plants; Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves claims\u00a0Grok is \u201cpreventing our adversaries\u2014particularly China\u2014from closing the technology gap.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the White House succeeds, Meyer said, the implications go far beyond just data centers. The administration would have every incentive to intervene in any citizen case against a Trump-aligned polluter and dismiss it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a blatant attempt to let well-connected corporations like xAI unlawfully pollute without any consequences,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>

Read more Trump and Iran: Stupid Is As Stupid Does<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An unprecedented legal filing claims that regulating Elon Musk\u2019s xAI could kill us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment"],"yoast_head":"\nGrok Is More Important Than Clean Air, DOJ Says - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=664\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Grok Is More Important Than Clean Air, DOJ Says - Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An unprecedented legal filing claims that regulating Elon Musk\u2019s xAI could kill us.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=664\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-20T11:37:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ba2cc5be7e3f5b61bd20782b449fd841-1024x576.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=664#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=664\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6b7c79bcfd888d98f34c5413df7e81a2\"},\"headline\":\"Grok Is More Important Than Clean Air, DOJ Says\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-20T11:37:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=664\"},\"wordCount\":827,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=664#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/16de9374f45a545ef7762101a2d99584.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Environment\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=664#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=664\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=664\",\"name\":\"Grok Is More Important Than Clean Air, DOJ Says - 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