Musk Data Centers Leave a Mississippi Family’s Historic Land Empty

Krystal Polk’s 2-acre family property in Southaven, Mississippi, sat empty this summer under a constant mechanical roar. The 52-year-old said the land had sustained four generations with chickens, pigs, onions, herbs and peach-for-pear trades until a power plant across the street drove them out a year ago.

That plant supplies Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI data centers in the Memphis area. Residents call the noise unbearable. An independent study projects tens of millions in yearly health costs. State leaders call the cluster the largest private investment in Mississippi history.

Land Held Across Four Generations

Polk told CBS News the property came into the family “before people of color were allowed to have land.” It passed down through relatives who raised food and animals there. When her parents first moved in they found “KKK” scrawled at the bottom of the hill.

She churned ice cream as a child, held her rehearsal dinner and hosted holidays on the lot. “We gathered there and we thanked God for what we had,” she said. “It was always a celebration.” After marriage she left, and the house bounced among kin. She planned to return in retirement and hand it to her children.

Those plans are on hold. The family has asthma. Fumes from the gas turbines worry them as much as the noise. “I’m afraid that we will be the ones that everyone looks back on and says, ‘Hey, remember they tried to tell us that these things were hazardous to our health and causing harm,’” Polk said. “I’m afraid that we’re going to be those casualties.”

• Childhood ice cream churning and holiday gatherings
• Rehearsal dinner and multi-generation residence
• Father’s dying request to keep the land “as much as I could within reason”
• Current status: mostly empty, occupied by the hum

Keeping it was her father’s final wish. Selling feels impossible on those terms.

How Temporary Turbines Became a Permanent Neighbor

SpaceXAI, formerly xAI, began expanding around Memphis in 2024 with Colossus 1. Temporary trailer-mounted natural-gas turbines arrived in Southaven to power the load. Numbers climbed quickly as more data halls came online.

Polk described the sound as “like you’re in the middle of the airport where the planes are taking off, but they never take off.” It lingers in her ears after she leaves. Birds once audible are gone. One sound wall installed so far has given residents little relief, they told CBS News.

In a July 30 update the company said it had entered an agreed order with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality setting a fixed removal timeline for all 69 of the temporary, mobile turbines. Permanent turbines authorized in March 2026 will replace them. SpaceXAI is also putting millions into sound walls, silencers and quieter next-generation units and equipping mobiles with selective catalytic reduction to cut nitrogen oxides. It says current monitoring shows local air quality meets or exceeds EPA standards and that it regularly reconfigures operations to cut noise.

Residents organized under the Safe and Sound Coalition. Their petition demanding a shutdown has collected more than 1,400 signatures. Shannon Samsa, a 27-year-old physician assistant and coalition director, has spoken at city meetings. “It’s not just my neighbors, it’s not just my family and friends, it’s my future patients,” she said. “It’s also a huge healthcare issue.”

What the Independent Health Study Found

EmPower Analytics Group, led by Harvard-trained environmental health scientist Dr. Michael Cork and commissioned by the Southern Environmental Law Center, modeled the planned 41 permanent turbines. The analysis estimated $30-$44 million in annual health damages from increased fine particle pollution.

Some nearby communities could see PM2.5 rises of 0.5 micrograms per cubic meter, a level the study linked to mortality-risk increases comparable to the average annual U.S. risk from alcohol-impaired driving. Hardest-hit tracts include Whitehaven and Westwood in Shelby County, Tennessee, plus Horn Lake and Southaven in DeSoto County, Mississippi. Those areas already rank more vulnerable than roughly three-quarters of U.S. census tracts and show elevated adult asthma rates.

$30-44 million yearly health damages projected
0.5 µg/m³ possible PM2.5 increase in some neighborhoods
Nearly 20 tons fine particles allowed yearly under the permit application plus precursor tons
Damages tied to premature deaths, asthma, heart attacks, hospital visits and missed school days

“Our analysis shows that operating 41 gas turbines in Southaven would worsen fine particle pollution in vulnerable communities that are already near or above federal air quality standards,” Cork said. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality has said it does not comment on third-party reports or pending litigation and remains committed to enforcing air standards. As part of permitting, MZX Tech had to show the facility would not violate those standards.

I’m afraid that we will be the ones that everyone looks back on and says, ‘Hey, remember they tried to tell us that these things were hazardous to our health and causing harm.’ I’m afraid that we’re going to be those casualties.

Krystal Polk, landowner, interview with CBS News

$20 Billion Arrives With Tax Breaks and a Land Swap

In January 2026 Governor Tate Reeves announced xAI would locate a data center known as MACROHARDRR in Southaven. The project represents a corporate investment exceeding $20 billion and will create hundreds of permanent jobs throughout DeSoto County, plus tax revenue for public safety, education and services. Musk called the pace “insane execution speed” and said the site would push Colossus training compute to roughly 2 GW.

The state approved data-center incentives that waive sales, use, corporate income and franchise taxes on qualifying equipment. Southaven and DeSoto County added fee-in-lieu property-tax reductions. In August an affiliate agreed to a land swap: the city transfers 51 acres on Tulane Road; the company provides 69 acres on Swinnea Road plus $40 million for a new police and fire training center. Mayor Darren Musselwhite called it an unprecedented private investment in public safety facilities.

This July Musk confirmed another local hall in a reply on X: to the right is Minihard, which will have the same 220k GB300s with 800-gig NICs as Macroharder but in a denser layout. The broader cluster now includes Colossus sites, MACROHARDRR and Minihard. Officials project the investment will prevent rate hikes for other electricity customers and generate thousands of indirect jobs.

For Polk the same expansion means uncertainty about whether to invest anything further in the empty lot. “We don’t know the future,” she said. “So we’re not sure what to invest into it.”

National Security Claim Meets the Clean Air Act Suit

In April the NAACP and allied groups sued xAI and subsidiary MZX Tech, alleging the plant emits significant harmful pollutants without proper permits. They later sought a preliminary injunction. SpaceXAI moved to dismiss. In June the Department of Justice intervened, arguing the matter concerns national security and Mississippi’s lawful permitting. A Defense Department official stated the turbines power Colossus 2, used to train Grok models including versions for the Department of Defense. An abrupt shutdown, company filings said, would inflict catastrophic harm on defendants and hundreds of millions of users; Grok would largely cease to function.

A preliminary-injunction hearing set for late August was postponed. The company continues operating under the MDEQ agreed order while permanent capacity comes online. Crowds on X and local organizers note that sound-mitigation and emission-control steps accelerated only after sustained complaints and legal pressure. Some residents say city advice has amounted to considering a sale.

Offers That Never Matched a Dying Wish

Real-estate firm Cushman & Wakefield approached Polk on behalf of an unidentified client. After repeated contacts she filed a Better Business Bureau complaint accusing the Tennessee branch of harassment and manipulation. The firm said it explored potential acquisition by phone, text and letter but denied pressure tactics. Polk said the company stopped after the complaint. She declined to name the offer amount but called it “not worth anything.”

The land’s value to her is not commercial. It is the place her family survived on and celebrated. Under industrial noise and buyout interest, heritage acreage becomes a bargaining chip. Local advocates see the pattern repeating across the border communities that host the turbines while the supercomputers sit a short drive away.

The Empty Lot and What Remains Unsettled

SpaceXAI continues installing controls and sound treatments and rotating temporary units out on the agreed schedule. Permanent 1.2 GW capacity is under construction. The $20 billion-plus cluster expands computing power for Grok and related systems that officials link to defense work. Jobs, tax base and a new public-safety training center are concrete local returns.

Polk’s lot remains mostly vacant. The roar continues. Her family’s multi-generation hold on the ground, the asthma concerns, the EmPower damage estimates and the 1,400-signature petition sit alongside the governor’s record-investment claim and the Justice Department’s national-security filing. The next concrete markers are the turbine-removal milestones through July 2027 and the unresolved court motions. Until then the 2 acres wait under the hum that replaced the birds.