Elon Musk's AI company XAI is trying to buy out homeowners near its Mississippi data centers in exchange for giving up their right to sue over noise and pollution — bad news for residents and a warning sign for any community getting a data center next.

• XAI built huge AI data centers on the Tennessee-Mississippi border to power its Grok chatbot, and residents say they got no warning or say in the decision.
• Gas turbines powering the centers run nonstop and are so loud that residents say they can't sleep, and the turbines were installed without the required permits.
• With weaker federal oversight after EPA budget and staff cuts, enforcement got kicked to the state, and the Justice Department even tried (unsuccessfully) to block a lawsuit by arguing the AI is needed for national security.
• After residents sued over the noise, XAI responded by sending realtors door-to-door offering to buy homes — but only if owners agree not to join the lawsuit; local estimates put pollution-related health costs at tens of millions of dollars a year.
• Mississippi's governor is defending the data centers as necessary to compete with China, even as residents say the fight is pushing them to get politically engaged for the first time.

Outlook: XAI has agreed to switch to a more permanent, quieter gas plant by next summer, but residents expect to keep suffering noise and health effects until then, and similar buyout fights are likely to spread as more AI data centers get built near homes nationwide.