xAI Skipped Pollution Permits, and the Pentagon Calls Smoke a War Asset

The NAACP sued xAI in April, alleging the company ran 27 gas turbines in Southaven, Mississippi without the Clean Air Act permits the law requires, pumping nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde into majority-Black neighborhoods to feed the Colossus 2 supercomputer behind Grok. Rather than make the company go get a permit, the Justice Department moved on a Monday to throw the suit out, on the theory that the smokestacks serve national security. A Pentagon official told the court that Grok ranks among only four frontier models fit for defense work and helped deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 targets in 96 hours during a strike on Iran. Your f*ucking AI gets to choke a neighborhood for free, because somewhere a chatbot is helping pick the coordinates. Read Utility Dive on the DOJ intervention.