Local Reporter Neil Strebig on Covering xAI's Expansion in Memphis and Beyond
About this episode
Neil Strebig discusses the ongoing developments surrounding xAI's expansion in Memphis and Southaven, including legal challenges and community concerns.
In June 2024 the Greater Memphis, Tennessee Chamber of Commerce announced Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, would build its "Colossus" data center in an old Electrolux factory. Two years on, the story continues to expand alongside the company’s growing footprint, with a second campus, Colossus II, across the state line in Southaven, Mississippi; a contested gray water recycling plant; an ever-rising count of gas turbines; multiple lawsuits; and communities in South Memphis still pressing for straight answers. Few people have tracked all of it more closely than Neil Strebig , a reporter with The Commercial Appeal in Memphis who has covered the xAI story daily from the beginning. He’s attended community meetings and hearings, filed right-to-know requests, parsed the differing interpretations of the Clean Air Act by the EPA, the Shelby County Health Department and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, counted turbines, and spent time with residents living alongside the facilities. The result is a level of detail that few can match. In this conversation, Strebig brings us up to speed on the latest developments — including a newly updated lawsuit citing…
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