Southaven residents filed a class action lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk’s xAI and its subsidiary, MZX Tech, on Tuesday in federal court over the company’s use of mobile gas-powered turbines at its plant. 

In the filing, residents said they have been harmed by noise from the large-scale generators. They allege that residents have dealt with “near-constant noise, vibrations, and other nuisance-level harms” since the middle of last year and it has hurt their quality of life and their property values. 

This lawsuit is the latest brought against the billionaire’s artificial intelligence company. Earlier this year, the NAACP, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, brought a lawsuit against xAI over a lack of environmental permits. In Mississippi, temporary/portable turbines are allowed to operate for one year without an air permit but the SELC and NAACP say that the lack of permits violates the federal Clean Air Act. 

The number of turbines has continued to increase, despite complaints from residents. The company built a sound barrier to try and mitigate the sound but residents say it has done little to help. As of May, there were 47 turbines on the site, up from 18 last year. 

Initially, the company bought a vacant power plant in Southaven and set up natural gas turbines to fuel its data centers in Memphis. It has since announced that it was investing a total of $20 billion to build a data center in Mississippi.   

This lawsuit comes as SpaceX, xAI’s parent company, is expected to go public on June 12 with an estimated $1.8 trillion valuation.