By Guardian staff reporter
Publication Date: 2026-02-13 18:00:00
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company continues to power its data centers with unauthorized gas turbines, an investigation by newsroom Floodlight shows. Thermal images captured by Floodlight via drone show that xAI is still burning gas at a plant in Southaven, Mississippi, despite a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision affirming that it requires advance government approval.
State regulators in Mississippi maintain that because the turbines are parked on tractor-trailers, they do not require permits. However, the EPA has long required that such sources of pollution be approved under the Clean Air Act.
Any exemption for these machines “could result in these engines not being subject to emissions standards at all,” the agency wrote in a final ruling in January.
However, thermal images captured by Floodlight and analyzed by multiple experts show that more than a dozen unauthorized turbines are still spewing pollutants into the power plant nearly two weeks after the EPA’s decision…
