Cancer-linked toxins overtake unassuming US town...and it's surprising connection to Elon Musk
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Isabel Whitaker's 12-year-old son always suffered seasonal allergies - but this year, things took a terrifying turn.
What began as a mild spring cough spiraled into multiple asthma attacks, urgent care visits, and rounds of steroids, nebulizers, and inhalers.
'This year, it was marked by a persistent cough that eventually led to him gasping for air. It got really scary and required a few trip a few trips to urgent care, a few trips to the doctor,' she told DailyMail.com.
'I think in the end, we had four or five nebulizer treatments, which he'd never had to do before, multiple steroids, multiple various medications, including two different inhalers. 'The doctor, I will remember the last visit, she was like, 'If this doesn't work, you just got to take them to the hospital.''
Whitaker, who lives just six miles from Elon Musk's newly erected xAI facility in Memphis, believes the plant is to blame.
Last July, Musk's AI venture Grok quietly converted a defunct Electrolux factory into a massive power-hungry data center with no public notice, hearings, or environmental review.
Boxtown, the working-class, predominantly Black community surrounding the facility, wasn't told what was coming. But now, residents say they can't ignore what's in the air — and what it's doing to their bodies.
Since operations started, residents report seeing a spike in asthma attacks, while doctors in the area have seen a rise in asthma- and allergy-related hospitalizations.
xAI sits just feet away from the Mississippi river along the Arkansas border in Boxtown, a small community in South Memphis
Boxtown is a picturesqe, working-class, predominantly Black community surrounding the xAI facility and other plants that are major sources of air pollution
To fuel xAI's power needs — a staggering 1,000 megawatts, compared to the grid's 150mw capacity — the company deployed dozens of methane gas turbines.
Officially, xAI claimed to be using just 15. But thermal imaging captured by the Southern Environmental Law Center revealed 35 turbines on site, all of them appearing to be operational.
The gas turbines emit nitrogen oxides (NOx), including nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a key contributor to smog.
Last July, Musk's AI venture Grok quietly converted a defunct Electrolux factory into a massive power-hungry data center with no public notice
That toxic haze now blankets homes and schools within a three-mile radius, according to advocates and residents.
And while xAI pledged to operate the turbines on a temporary basis, most have been operational since the summer - long enough, experts say, to inflict permanent damage.
xAI did not respond to DailyMail.com's questions.
For Boxtown resident Sarah Gladney, who suffers from sarcoidosis—an autoimmune condition affecting the lungs—the impact has been immediate and frightening.
'We have had to fight [the Tennessee Valley Authority] waste facilities in previous years, waking up now and then to smell that rotten egg smell, but now we are smelling a more toxic or chemical type of odor that's coming in the air and into our homes,' she told DailyMail.com.
People who have lived in the Boxtown neighborhood of Southwest Memphis for decades told DailyMail.com that their asthma and allergy symptoms have intensified since last summer, sending many to the hospital
At the end of March, environmental groups flew over the facility and took photographs of the turbines. The aerial photos pictured 35 turbines onsite. All of them glowed red in the thermal cameras, indicating that all turbines are functional. xAI has insisted only 15 are up and running
Now, she fears a relapse. She's also seen neighbors die of cancer, and can't help but fear there could be a link.
Shelby County, which encompasses Boxtown, already grapples with the nation's highest pediatric asthma hospitalization rate: 1,996 ER visits and 165 hospitalizations per 100,000 children each year.
Whitaker's pediatrician at the local hospital said doctors are seeing an unprecedented surge in kids with first-time wheezing.
'And that is essentially what's happened with my son, is that he's become a first time wheezer, and he's still on inhalers,' Whitaker said.
And it's not just kids — the elderly are suffering too.
Easter Knox, 74, who has lived in Boxtown for several decades, told DailyMail.com her husband was in the hospital that very morning for a severe asthma flare-up.
She herself lives with COPD, a chronic lung disease that worsens when she opens her windows in the morning.
'My husband has an asthma problem, and with my COPD, the smell in the air, it makes it worse,' she said.
Whitaker's pediatrician in the emergency department at the local children's hospital, said that doctors have seen more kids with new-onset wheezing for the first time than ever before. Her son was one of them.
Residents of Boxtown told DailyMail.com that is a tight-knit community. It is also situated a mere three miles from the xAI plant
Four schools sit within six miles of the plant, engulfing children in toxic fumes during their daily walks.
Knox added: 'We have a lot of little kids who have to walk early in the morning to school. They're inhaling all of that smell.
'It's definitely going to affect their little bodies, and they're going to have asthma, a lot of chronic illnesses in their bodies.'
Amanda Garcia, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, told DailyMail.com: 'That was all happening even before xAI came into town.'
The area is also home to steel, refining, and food processing industries, as well as considerable sources of car pollution.
'We calculate that, in all, [the turbines] emit between 1,200 and 2,100 tons per year of nitrogen oxide, which makes smog,' Garcia added.
Levels of smog, which creates hazy, poisonous air through a chemical reaction between pollutants spewing from methane gas turbines, are consistently higher in Shelby County than what is deemed safe, earning a faily grade from the American Lung Association
Easter Knox, a 74-year-old who has lived in Boxtown for several decades, told DailyMail.com that her husband was in the emergency department that very morning for a severe asthma flare-up. She has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Before the turbines appeared, Shelby County had already earned failing grades from the American Lung Association for sky-high smog levels.
Memphis's average cancer risk from air pollution (55 cases per million people) is even higher than the national level (51 per million), which makes the city rank among the worst five percent of areas.
Toxic smog forms when NOx (NO and NO₂) from vehicles, power plants, and factories reacts with sunlight.
NO converts to NO₂, creating urban haze. Sunlight then breaks NO₂ into components that form ozone (O₃) - the hazy, breath-choking core of smog.
According to the EPA, even brief exposure worsens asthma and other respiratory diseases, triggering coughing, wheezing, and ER visits.
An NIH-funded study in 2015 found a 4 percent increased lung cancer risk per 10 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m³) increase in NO₂ in the air and a three percent increased lung cancer risk per 10 μg/m³ increase in NOx.
Keshaun Pearson, an environmental justice advocate with Memphis Community Against Pollution told DailyMail.com that he develops severe breathing difficulties whenever he steps outside.
'The immediate area around xAI, there are 17 other toxic release facilities, and so what you're seeing is just like a conglomerate of toxic pollution, a toxic soup of what people are ingesting and breathing in daily,' he said.
Environmental groups on the ground in Memphis estimate that, in all, the turbines emit between 1,200 and 2,100 tons per year of nitrogen oxide, which makes smog. Easter Knox, a Boxtown resident who spoke with DailyMail.com about the issue, is shown protesting
Keshaun Pearson [holding the orange sign] who experiences severe breathing difficulties outside, said the area around xAI has 17 other toxic release facilities—it's a toxic soup of pollution that people are breathing in every day
In 2013, researchers at the University of Memphis found evidence of 60 different hazardous volatile organic compounds in the city's air, including benzene, formaldehyde, and acrylonitrile.
All of these substances are contributors to leukemia and blood disorders, nasopharyngeal cancer, chronic respiratory disease, lung, prostate, and bladder cancers, and reproductive issues.
But the arrival of xAI’s facility came with no public notice, consultation, or consent.
'It is very unfortunate to witness and to feel like xAI and its representatives are more important than the people in the city of Memphis, any transparency about the project, any collaboration with the community,' Pearson said.
Now, community members are demanding answers—and accountability.
Gladney, Knox, and Whitaker have long advocated for clean air. They’ve joined forces with Pearson and his brother Justin, a state legislator, to protest the unchecked industrialization of South Memphis.
Gladney put it bluntly: 'We’d love to have our community receive some of this money. But to me our health is our wealth, and if the city can fix this situation where we won't have to inhale and endure this chemicals that's in our community, that's fine.'
She added: 'But at the end of the day, not all money is good money.'
Daily Mail
