xAI kicks off 2026 with both Physical & Mental harm

xAI is really committing to the 'disruptive' bit this year.

First we had the absolute car crash that was the 'Spicy Mode' update. We barely had time to process that their shiny new model was immediately used to generate non-consensual deepfakes and CP before the backlash hit. And let’s be clear, they didn't roll it back because of a sudden moral awakening. They only panicked when major governments actually threatens to pull the plug.

In mid-January, Indonesia and Malaysia became the first countries to officially ban Grok, blocking the domain entirely to protect their citizens.

Then the heavyweights stepped in. Ofcom launched a formal investigation on January 12 threatening massive fines, and the EU Commission demanded the preservation of documents for prosecution. Faced with losing the entire European market, xAI's "fix" was cynical at best. They just put the feature behind a paywall. Apparently, deepfake abuse is fine as long as you pay the $16 monthly subscription.

That was grim enough, but apparently ruining lives digitally wasn't sufficient. They had to go and poison the actual air too.

It turns out xAI has been generating electricity illegally to power their Memphis supercomputer.

To keep up with the absurd power demands of training Grok, they installed a massive array of up to 35 mobile gas turbines. This is effectively a private power plant running right next to a residential area. They have been running these dirty generators for months without the required air quality permits, trying to use a loophole by claiming the equipment was 'temporary'.

Well, that excuse just died. As of mid-January 2026, the EPA officially ruled that xAI is violating the Clean Air Act.

So now they are dumping thousands of tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides into a predominantly Black, low-income neighbourhood in South Memphis. We aren't talking about a few diesel generators here. These turbines are pumping out enough pollution to rival a utility-scale power station. Locals in Boxtown are breathing in a chemical cocktail of formaldehyde and benzene, causing asthma rates to spike in an area that was already suffering from legacy industrial pollution. They essentially treated the lungs of the local residents as a carbon filter for their AI training run.

This creates a massive problem for their future. xAI had grand plans to build an even larger facility in Mississippi (which Musk has ridiculously nicknamed "MACROHARDRR") to house hundreds of thousands more chips.

Good luck with that now.

You can't exactly fly under the radar when you have just been flagged by the federal government as a rogue polluter. Any local council looking at their permit application is going to see a company that lies about its equipment, ignores air quality laws, and gets sued by the NAACP. The expansion that was supposed to save them is now stuck in regulatory hell.

And let's be real about the money. While Musk might be the world's richest man, xAI is certainly not the world's richest company. It is a startup living on other people's credit. They are currently burning roughly $1 billion of investor money every single month.

But that’s just the appetiser. The new expansion plans are designed to be 3 or 4 times larger than Memphis. If they ever get that online, the operational costs, electricity, staff, hardware depreciation, will likely double or triple to $2-3 billion a month.