Living next to a jet engine isn’t most people’s idea of a good neighbor. But for residents near Southaven, Mississippi, that’s essentially become daily life, according to a new federal class-action lawsuit targeting Elon Musk’s xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech.

The suit, filed on June 9 in US District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, represents an estimated class of over 10,000 residents. Their complaint is straightforward: the gas-turbine power plant supplying energy to xAI’s Colossus data centers is producing nonstop noise that’s ruining their health and tanking their property values.

What’s making all the noise

The Southaven facility runs 27 gas-fired turbines. In English: imagine nearly three dozen industrial-grade engines running simultaneously, all day, every day, to feed the enormous power appetite of one of the world’s most ambitious AI computing clusters.

The Colossus data-center cluster itself sits across state lines in South Memphis. But the power plant feeding it landed in Southaven, and local residents are the ones absorbing the consequences.

Plaintiffs allege the continuous noise constitutes a public nuisance. The complaint describes sounds comparable to a jet engine.

xAI has apparently acknowledged the problem to some degree. The company installed a $7 million sound wall and is reportedly evaluating additional noise mitigation measures.

A pattern of legal trouble in the region

Here’s the thing: this isn’t even xAI’s first lawsuit over this facility. It’s the second in roughly two months.

In April 2026, the NAACP filed a separate lawsuit against xAI and MZX Tech alleging Clean Air Act violations. That suit claims the turbines operate without required air permits, releasing pollutants into majority-Black communities near Memphis without regulatory authorization.

The Department of Justice has expressed potential interest in intervening in that environmental case.

What this means for investors

The AI infrastructure boom has a dirty little secret: it requires staggering amounts of energy, and sourcing that energy creates real-world friction with real-world communities. xAI’s situation in Mississippi is quickly becoming a case study in what happens when a tech company’s expansion timeline outpaces its regulatory and community engagement efforts.

Regulatory scrutiny could lead to fines, operating restrictions, or mandated shutdowns of unpermitted equipment. Each of those outcomes directly affects the operational capacity of the Colossus cluster. A $7 million sound wall is already built, and further mitigation measures are being evaluated. Legal fees alone for two class-action-scale federal cases aren’t trivial.

The DOJ’s potential involvement in the NAACP case adds a federal enforcement dimension that goes beyond civil liability. If the government decides to pursue Clean Air Act violations independently, the consequences could extend beyond monetary damages to include injunctive relief that forces operational changes.