The world’s richest man Elon Musk was one of three billionaires Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez named in her criticism of the massive data center buildout happening across America. Speaking in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez asserted that neither Musk, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, or Palantir chairman Peter Thiel — nor anyone else — “wants one of these data centers in their own backyard.”
Despite this, Ocasio-Cortez said, “billionaires are constructing and pushing and imposing these data centers on communities that are overwhelmingly rural, disenfranchised [and] poor,” leaving everyday citizens with little power to resist.
Addressing the power usage and pollutive effects of the big data centers being built at scale around the country, Ocasio-Cortez spoke about her recent visit to Memphis, where an xAI data center partly powers Musk’s social media giant X and its AI chatbot Grok.
[NOTE: “Elected officials,” Ocasio-Cortez said, “are not being transparent about how the land use is happening in their own backyard.”]
Rep. @AOC: Ask Peter Thiel, ask Elon Musk, ask Mark Zuckerberg, if they want one of these data centers in their own backyard. I was just in Memphis. All within one block, an xAI greywater treatment plant, methane turbines, coal ash, wastewater facilities. Everyone in that area is… pic.twitter.com/2mcWqEEqzv
— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) July 22, 2026
In Memphis, Ocasio-Cortez recounted, “there was an xAI greywater treatment plant on one street corner, across the street from methane turbines, all within one block, coal ash, wastewater facilities and everyone in that area is getting poisoned.”
Ocasio-Cortez described a cityscape where X has located what it calls “Colossus, a state-of-the-art supercomputer that is also the power behind Grok, SpaceXAI’s revolutionary AI companion.”
To build the “world’s biggest AI supercomputer,” X states it “we worked closely with Memphis Mayor Paul Young, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn and other elected officials and community leaders, as well as utility companies like Memphis Light, Gas and Water, (MLGW) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).”
Data center construction is a controversial issue due to concerns over — just for starters — pollution, energy costs, and water usage.
[NOTE: New York, for example, recently became the first state to declare a moratorium on new hyperscale data center construction, which Gov. Kathy Hochul said “threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers.”]
Ocasio-Cortez’s assertion that the people of Memphis are being “poisoned” by xAI’s operation has not been shown to be true. But the congresswoman’s concern stems from potentially hazardous scenarios revealed in a study from the Florida Water & Pollution Control Operators Association, which writes:
“Consider that cooling tower blowdown (the water bled off from cooling systems) tends to have high mineral content (TDS), traces of chemicals like chlorine or biocides, and altered pH. If dozens of data centers in one area are all discharging such water, the local wastewater treatment facility faces a huge load. In Northern Virginia’s data center alley, for example, the volume of wastewater from data centers is so large that utilities are closely watching capacity. Overtaxed treatment plants could lead to insufficiently treated water reaching streams, which threatens aquatic life and public health. Moreover, thermal pollution is a factor: data centers sometimes release water that’s significantly warmer, which can upset the ecology of rivers or lakes if not cooled.”
Other data center impacts and strains on the environment, like outsize resource usage, are less in dispute — and here negatives are generally presented as a well-considered tradeoff for jobs and an economically strong community.
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