DOJ Urges Court To Drop Suit Against Elon Musk's Colossus Data Center
Elon Musk is getting an assist from the Trump administration’s Department of Justice as his AI firm faces a legal battle with the NAACP.
The civil rights organization filed a lawsuit in April alleging that xAI's Colossus data centers in Memphis, Tennessee, violate federal environmental laws. The DOJ, in a filing this week, urged a federal judge to dismiss the suit, arguing that these data centers — and the Grok artificial intelligence models they enable — are critical for national security.
The lawsuit says Musk’s company built its Memphis-area data centers and the gas turbines powering them without the permits or pollution controls required under the Clean Air Act. As a result, the suit says, nearby communities are being exposed to dangerous emissions. Central to the suit is the contention that xAI has operated nearly 60 unpermitted gas turbines.
The Trump administration's Monday brief, first reported by Politico, says the NAACP suit, if successful, would interfere with the White House’s goal of promoting AI infrastructure needed by the military to “meet its national security mission and keep pace with adversaries.”
Noting that the military used Grok during its operations in Iran this year, DOJ lawyers argued that Grok’s continued availability “is a matter of paramount national security,” as it is one of just four AI models that can support national security applications.
The DOJ wrote that the NAACP suit “threatens American national, economic, and energy security by seeking to shut off the power supply for artificial-intelligence innovation that supports the Department of War’s military operations.”
The Trump administration has frequently framed its support for the development of AI data centers and their supporting power infrastructure as a matter of national security, with expanded U.S. computing capacity critical to maintaining an edge over China in an emerging AI arms race. Still, this is the first reported case of federal agencies directly intervening on behalf of a specific data center project on national security grounds.
Musk’s firm has long faced accusations that it ignored environmental laws in an effort to bring its Colossus data centers online quickly.
The presence of 35 gas turbines, capable of generating 422 megawatts of power, on the site was revealed in April 2025 through aerial photographs published by the Southern Environmental Law Center. According to SELC, xAI was only permitted to operate 15 generators. Although some local leaders contended that only 15 of the turbines were operational, SELC released thermal imaging that it says shows all of the units in use.
“XAI has essentially built a power plant in South Memphis with no oversight, no permitting, and no regard for families living in nearby communities,” SELC senior attorney Amanda Garcia said at the time.
Musk merged xAI with SpaceX in February, and last week the combined company raised $75B with its initial public offering. The xAI portion of the company has been recording billions in losses as it builds out its data center infrastructure.
