AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today’s show in Memphis, Tennessee, where Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company X, now called xAI, opened a massive data center, known as Colossus, last year that supports the chatbot Grok. The facility is next to historically Black neighborhoods and runs on 35 methane gas-powered turbine generators, which emit significant amounts of nitrogen oxide and other toxic chemicals. The Southern Environmental Law Center says the turbines are operating without a permit. Those permits are the focus of a Shelby County Health Department hearing taking place today, Friday, as Musk says he wants to continue to expand his project. In February, Elon Musk explained why he decided to build Colossus in Memphis.

ELON MUSK: Well, we needed a building. We can’t build a building, so we must use an existing building. So we looked for — basically, for factories that had been — that had been abandoned, but the factory was in good shape, like a company had gone bankrupt or something. So, we found an Electrolux factory in Memphis. That’s why it’s in Memphis, home of Elvis and also one of the oldest — I think it was the capital of ancient Egypt.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Tennessee state Representative Justin J. Pearson, a Democrat who represents Memphis.

REP. JUSTIN J. PEARSON: xAI, Elon Musk’s company, is operating 35 gas turbines in southwest Memphis, in the neighborhood where myself and my entire family lives. This is horrific news. They are increasing the amount of nitrogen dioxide, which causes smog and continues to harm people with asthma, by potentially 30 to 60%.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we are joined in Memphis, Tennessee, by state Representative Justin J. Pearson and his brother KeShaun Pearson, executive director of Memphis Community Against Pollution.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! KeShaun, let’s begin with you, as you’re quoted all over about what’s happening in your community, Memphis, Tennessee, where Dr. King was assassinated April 4th, 1968; Memphis, Tennessee, where Elon Musk wants to build — is trying to expand Colossus. Explain what’s happening and the community response and what you’re planning to say today at the health department hearing.

KESHAUN PEARSON: What’s happening in Memphis is a human rights violation. Elon Musk and xAI are violating our human right to clean air and a clean, healthy environment. Today I plan to address the Shelby County Health Department in stating that this has not been a transparent process, this has been done in a clandestine way, and this is not the way that we can move forward healthily for our community. We need justice in processing. We need justice in the process. We need redress and repair. We don’t need continual pollution.

We’ve seen this story before, where polluters come to our city, whether it has been TVA in their Valero plant, sterilization services in their ethylene oxide plant. We have continued to be looked at as the path of least resistance. Today I will make and explain to our Shelby County Health Department that we are not the path of least resistance. We are a resilient community that deserves the human rights of clean air, clean water, clean soil and a healthy environment. We should not continue to bear the burden of the negative health impacts of this facility and its rapid pace and movement. A phrase and a term coined by Leah Thomas, “environmental intersectionalism” —

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you — 

KESHAUN PEARSON: — explains how Black — yeah, sure.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you, Elon Musk claims he chose the former Electrolux building in Memphis because he wanted to get his AI applications up as fast as possible, within 122 days. He decided to use the abandoned building instead of a brand-new one. Can you talk about what Electrolux was before the process it took for Musk’s company xAI to purchase the building?

KESHAUN PEARSON: Electrolux was a company that scammed the city of Memphis. Electrolux came to our city and promised jobs, promised prosperity, similar to what xAI is doing, and then they left. They left without fulfilling the promise of jobs. They left without fulfilling the tax — the tax recommendations and the taxes that they said that they would provide that would elevate our community. They made promises, and then they left and abandoned us.

This is the same process that we’ve seen Elon Musk do in Texas, as well as California. He will create a plan, and then he will leave. And so, what we’re seeing right now is that this continual process is continuing to happen with a new tenant. Electrolux provided him the facility, and he is scamming the city of Memphis while putting out pollution.

AMY GOODMAN: KeShaun, I want to introduce your brother. This is an interesting inside-outside strategy. Tennessee Democratic state Representative Justin J. Pearson of Memphis, well known to people around the country. The two Justins, the representatives who were forced out of the Legislature, then reelected back in by their communities, Justin J. Pearson representing Memphis. Justin, thank you so much for being with us, state representative. If you can talk about your opposition to Elon Musk and xAI? Very interesting that your fellow Republicans, who have a supermajority in the Tennessee state House, recently passed a resolution recognizing Musk as, quote, “a brilliant businessman who’s saving lives and helping to restore America as a valuable ally of Donald J. Trump.” Talk about your concerns about what this AI data center will mean.

REP. JUSTIN J. PEARSON: Yeah, look, my concern is that Elon Musk is buying and paying for access to pollute, harm and hurt our community. Unfortunately, our mayors and elected officials and appointed officials — Mayor Lee Harris, Mayor Paul Young, Shelby County Health Director Michelle Taylor — and the Greater Memphis Chamber all decided that the community of 38109, where I live, could be on the auction block for Elon Musk to buy.

And it is a horrible, horrendous project that is having serious ramifications for our community. The reason that in legislation that my colleagues passed praising Elon Musk I put several amendments was to tell the truth, that Elon Musk is polluting the air of Tennesseans. He is continuing and perpetuating environmental racism and environmental degradation in our community. This project is an application for 15 gas turbines, but we know today that they have 35 turbines, and yesterday a report showed 33 of those in operation, despite the fact that the mayor of Memphis said only 15 of them were being used, because that’s what xAI had told him. They are liars. They are abusing our community, and they are exploiting us, and it’s having horrible ramifications — 17.2 tons of formaldehyde being sprayed into our air because of these gas turbines, over 130 tons of nitrogen oxide, making them a larger polluter than the Memphis International Airport. It’s happening right now in our community.

And elected officials and appointed officials have a responsibility to the people who they were elected and appointed to serve, not to the billionaires and the oligarchs who are misusing and abusing their authority to hurt our community.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Memphis Mayor Paul Young, after public pressure mounted, offering to earmark a portion of the roughly $15 million in tax proceeds from xAI’s operation?

REP. JUSTIN J. PEARSON: Yeah, I mean, Mayor Young’s idea that he’s going to give us tax money in place of our health and our lives is completely asinine, and it’s an insult to the people in this community. But it isn’t just Mary Young who is problematic. It’s Mayor Lee Harris of Shelby County, who has said nothing about this project since it started, and he was all praise and all happy-go-lucky about it, and now we can’t find him. He’s entirely invisible, despite the fact that the health department is under his purview. And so, he hasn’t come out with a statement saying that we need to protect our air, we need to protect our citizens, we need to protect our community. And that is giving license to Elon Musk and to xAI that they can pollute our community, they can hurt us, without any ramification.

But the people power that is rising up, the democracy that is being shown here by people of all constituencies, people all across our district, in District 86, but all across this city and this county, is showing that we are not going to yield to the anti-democratic, anti-constitutional actions of people. We are not going to yield our lives and our lungs to Elon Musk, to Paul Young, to Lee Harris, to Michelle Taylor. We are not yielding our lives for the profits of the richest man in the world.

This is ridiculous that the Greater Memphis Chamber and so many other people have literally decided that we can be sacrificed for the benefits of a data center and a supercomputer, and we not be included in the process, our voices not be heard. That isn’t the way that economic development is supposed to go. And if that is the way that economic development needs to go in our city, we don’t want it. It’s an insult to the people in Boxtown, in Westwood, in West Junction, in Walker Homes, in Coro Lake that we are being treated this way, and that the people who have a responsibility and an obligation to do something about it are refusing to do so.

AMY GOODMAN: Democratic state Representative Justin J. Pearson, I wanted to extend my condolences on your baby brother’s death, not such a baby anymore, took his own life in December. And I understand, going back in time, when Tim was born, he needed a machine to breathe. KeShaun, when he was born, was born premature. Can you, first, talk about what you feel this all has to do with, communities that have cancer clusters and are in environmentally really fragile shape as a result of pollution?

REP. JUSTIN J. PEARSON: Absolutely. So, KeShaun and I lost my middle brother, his baby brother, younger brother, Tim Pearson, in December, and we miss him every single day, one of the reasons that it’s so important that we do something about this gun violence epidemic. And he was a proponent and a super advocate in our community and would have been at this public hearing today fighting alongside of us, as well, but he’s with us in spirit, for sure.

But he was born with asthma, my oldest brother born prematurely. My uncle sleeps with a CPAP machine. My auntie is currently fighting cancer, breast cancer, right now, and the same type of breast cancer that my grandmother died from. We know that environmental injustice is having a serious impact on the very lives and the health of the people in our communities.

And these issues are interconnected. It is no coincidence that 75% — if you are Black, African American in this country, you’re 75% more likely to live near a toxic hazardous waste facility. It’s no accident that in this district, in this community, we’re four times likelier to have cancer in our bodies. It’s no accident that in this community there are over 17 Toxics Release Inventory facilities surrounding us — now 18 with Elon Musk’s xAI plant. It is a consistent practice that is a part of the history of our country, to first redline communities, force people to live in certain areas, and if you look at those same maps and where industrial facilities are being placed, they overlap.

Our communities are being targeted. None of this is accidental or coincidental. We are being targeted, and our lives are continuously and consistently being hurt and harmed by the actions of corporations and by leaders like the Greater Memphis Chamber, Mayor Young, Mayor Harris, Director Taylor, who are not stepping up to the plate to say, “You know what? We do need to find out more information about the environmental consequences before we greenlight projects like this.”

And if I can say this, look, when you look at —

AMY GOODMAN: And we just have 20 seconds.

REP. JUSTIN J. PEARSON: Oh, go ahead. Look, we have to fight. That is our responsibility. Fight, because clean air is a human right.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Tennessee Democratic state Representative Justin J. Pearson, who’s holding a news conference today at 4:30 in Memphis. And I want to thank KeShaun Pearson, executive director of Memphis Community [Against] Pollution. We will continue to follow this story.

Democracy Now! currently accepting applications for an individual giving manager to support our fundraising team. Check it out at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.