SpaceX Agrees to Remove 69 Mobile Gas Turbines, With Final Exit Scheduled for July 2027

Overview

• SpaceX and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality reached an agreement to remove all 69 temporary, trailer‑mounted turbines from the Southaven site by July 2027 with phased removals to begin as early as August.
• The company says the turbines have powered xAI’s Colossus data centers for months and will be retired as a 41‑turbine, 1.2 gigawatt permanent plant authorized under a March state Clean Air Act permit comes online.
• Civil rights and environmental groups NAACP and the Southern Environmental Law Center sued over unpermitted operations, and the U.S. Department of Justice has publicly backed SpaceX’s security and energy arguments in that litigation.
• Regulators and advocates dispute SpaceX’s claim that the units qualify for a temporary‑mobile exemption, and that dispute centers on how the Clean Air Act treats large combustion sources regardless of whether they sit on trailers.
• Local public‑health advocates warn the turbines can produce large amounts of smog‑forming NOx in an already polluted Memphis region, and journalists note APR Energy turbine models and SpaceX’s nearly $3 billion turbine purchases raise questions about where other units may be deployed.