Elon Musk and his company’s data center footprint in Memphis, Tennessee, repeatedly came under fire Tuesday during a packed city council meeting that descended into chaos.
The heated Memphis City Council meeting, attended by roughly 200 residents — many of whom held signs opposing data centers — was ultimately shut down after council members voted 7-5 to postpone a vote on a proposed data center moratorium in the city.
Police were called to the scene as shouting from attendees consumed the room. Livestream footage of the meeting showed a person with a bullhorn prompting a crowd to chant, “ain’t no power like the power of the people.”
In online cellphone video footage, some activists were seen screaming at council members, with one repeatedly yelling, “You’re a sellout.” A physical fight also broke out between two people in the City Hall lobby, though it was unclear what prompted the brawl.
The tumultuous end to the city council meeting offered a snapshot into the fury fueling a growing nationwide backlash to AI data center development.
Ahead of the vote, city councilman JB Smiley Jr. asked community members to stand if they supported the proposed 12-month data center moratorium in Memphis. Nearly all attendants got out of their seats. Some held signs reading, “people over billionaires,” “pause data centers,” and “data center moratorium now.”
Councilwoman Jerri Green, who voted against delaying the vote on a proposed data center moratorium, urged her colleagues to greenlight the pause while criticizing tech titan Musk.
Green, the Democratic nominee for Tennessee governor, pointed to the many locales that have already imposed data center moratoriums “because they see the harm that is happening around the country.”
“That is the whole point of the moratorium — is for us to take a pause to get the community input, which was overlooked completely by Elon Musk and xAI when they came in,” Green said to cheers from the audience.
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Musk’s rocket and AI company, SpaceX, operates two massive data center facilities in the Memphis area and is developing a third. SpaceX, which acquired xAI earlier this year, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.
Neil Strebig/The Commercial Appeal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images/Reuters
Green was not the only councilmember to take aim at Musk during the meeting.
Councilwoman Rhonda Logan, who voted in favor of postponing the vote, said Memphis’ zoning laws opened the door to Musk’s projects and other data center development in Memphis.
“We do not have safeguards to protect our people,” Logan said.
She added, “If you don’t address your zoning and determine where you want things in your city, you’re always going to be vulnerable to those that have money and power and can come in and do what they want to.”
Another councilwoman, Yolanda Cooper-Sutton, also referenced Musk when she warned: “You better be careful because you’re dealing with a trillionaire in this city that’s here right now.”
“There’s some stuff that went on,” Cooper-Sutton, who voted to postpone, said. “There was more money going out than was coming in when xAI was here.”
The Memphis City Council is expected to vote on the proposed data center moratorium on October 20.
