For crying out loud xAI spent $7M building wall that barely muffles annoying power plant noise “Temu sound wall” not enough to quell fury over xAI’s power plant.
26 Credit: Anadolu / Contributor | Anadolu Credit: Anadolu / Contributor | Anadolu Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav For miles around xAI’s makeshift power plant in Southaven, Mississippi, neighbors have endured months of constant roaring, erupting pops, and bursts of high-pitched whining from 27 temporary gas turbines installed without consulting the community.
In a report on Thursday, NBC News interviewed residents fighting to shut down xAI’s turbines. They confirmed that xAI operates the turbines day and night, allegedly tormenting residents in order to power xAI founder Elon Musk’s unbridled AI ambitions.
Eventually, 41 permanent gas turbines—that supposedly won’t be as noisy—will be installed, if xAI can secure the permitting. In the meantime, xAI has erected a $7 million “sound barrier” that’s supposed to mitigate some of the noise.
However, residents told NBC News that the wall that xAI built does little to quiet the din.
Taylor Logsdon, who lives near the power plant, said that neighbors nearby jokingly call it the “Temu sound wall,” referencing the Chinese e-commerce site known for peddling cheap, rather than high-quality goods. For Logsdon, the wall has not helped to calm her dogs, which have been unsettled by sudden booms and squeals that videos show can frequently be heard amid the turbines’ continual jet engine-like hum. Some residents are just as unsettled as the dogs, describing the noises from the plant as “scary.”
A nonprofit environmental advocacy group, the Safe and Sound Coalition, has been collecting evidence, hoping to raise awareness in the community to block xAI from obtaining permits for its permanent turbines. The group’s website links to videos documenting the noise, noise analysis reports, and public records showing how challenging it’s been to track xAI’s communications with public officials.
For example, public records requests to the city of Southaven seeking information on xAI exemptions to noise ordinances or communications about the sound wall turned up nothing. A director overseeing the city’s planning and development claimed that the office was not “involved with the noise barrier wall” and could provide no details. Similarly, a permit clerk for the city’s building department confirmed there were no documents to share.
Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the coalition told Ars that the “absence of documentation raises transparency concerns.”
“When decisions with community impact are made without accessible records, it creates an accountability gap and limits the public’s ability to understand how those decisions were evaluated or authorized,” the spokesperson said.
An IT worker who co-founded the coalition, Jason Haley, told NBC News that xAI’s wall showed that the city could have required the company to do more to prevent noise pollution before upsetting community members.
“If you knew the noise was going to be an issue, put in a sound wall first,” Haley said. “Do some other stuff first before you torture us. That’s not that hard of an ask.”
xAI did not immediately respond to Ars’ request to comment. According to NBC News, the company has yet to make public a noise analysis that it conducted.
xAI’s turbines spark other concerns
xAI has maintained that it follows the law when rushing at breakneck speeds to build infrastructure to support its AI innovations. In Southaven, xAI was approved to operate the temporary gas turbines at the power plant for 12 months, without any additional permitting required.
Now it’s seeking permits for the permanent turbines, which residents worry could be nearly as loud, while possibly introducing more smog into an area that’s mostly homes, churches, parks, and schools, the Safe and Sound Coalition’s website said.
Pollutants could increase risks of asthma, heart attacks, stroke, and cancer, a community flyer the coalition distributed warned, urging attendance at a public meeting where residents could finally air their complaints (a meeting which NBC News’ report thoroughly documented). The flyer also suggested that the city’s main drinking water supply could be affected and perhaps tainted if the power plant’s wastewater contains toxic chemicals, since there isn’t a graywater recycling plant nearby. For residents, it’s hard to tell if things will ever get better. One noise analysis the coalition shared found that the daily sound of the turbines was higher on an “annoyance scale” than when entire neighborhoods set off New Year’s Eve fireworks.
“Our water, air, power grid, utility bills, property values, and health are all at risk,” the Safe and Sound Coalition’s website said. “We’re already facing toxic pollution and relentless industrial noise. There is no clear oversight, no transparency, and no plan to protect the people living nearby.”
The coalition expects that if enough community members protest the plant, the permitting agency will deny xAI’s permits and order any potentially dangerous turbines to be shut down. But other groups are taking a different approach, considering suing xAI if it continues operating the unpermitted gas turbines in Southaven.
Earlier this month, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) joined the NAACP in sending xAI a notice of intent to sue. In that letter, groups warned that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently changed a rule that they argued now requires permits for the temporary turbines. They gave xAI 60 days to respond.
The same groups previously sent a legal threat to xAI, opposing alleged data center pollution in Memphis, Tenn. xAI eventually secured permits for some of the gas turbines sparking scrutiny there, which many locals found “devastating.” Further concerning, residents relying on drone imagery—with no other way to keep track of how many turbines xAI was running—warned that the permits only covered 15 of 24 turbines on site.
EPA shrugs off xAI permitting concerns
It’s unclear whether the SELC can win if it takes xAI to court, or whether the EPA would ever intervene if that action could be construed as delaying Trump’s order to rush permitting and build as many data centers as fast as possible to power AI.
The SELC declined Ars’ request to comment, but the EPA’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, seemed to negate that argument in an interview with Fox Business in January. Asked directly about xAI’s gas turbines, Zeldin confirmed that the EPA was working closely on permitting with local officials in Southaven and Shelby County—where xAI built a massive data center sparking protests.
Rather than suggesting that the EPA might be preparing to review xAI’s unpermitted gas turbines, Zeldin emphasized that for Donald Trump, it “is about getting permits done faster.”
