Investor + Community Oversight of xAI’s Data-Center Buildout

The Problem

In South Memphis, Elon Musk’s xAI is building massive data-center facilities powered by dirty gas turbines, polluting predominantly Black neighborhoods and straining local infrastructure. These harms are being financed, in large part, by public dollars: workers’ retirement savings invested through private-equity and venture-capital firms like Valor Equity Partners.

The Questions That Define Our Campaign

How can workers protect their retirement savings from the risks of irresponsible AI build-out and ensure their investments help Memphis communities thrive? How do we ensure investors understand how their investments affect communities and expose their portfolios to systemic risks, and support them to use their power to change those outcomes?

How do we reclaim public funds for the public good?

Answering these questions requires bridging the gap between capital and community—between where financial power is held and where its impacts are felt.

Our Active Campaign

We are part of a larger effort to organize a cross-sector effort of frontline communities, labor leaders, and responsible investors, to challenge harmful AI infrastructure and establish stronger national investment standards for the AI era.

What Majority Action is doing about it:

  • We translate community impact into investor action—connecting lived experience to financial decision-making and making clear how systemic harms translate into portfolio risk.

  • We build direct relationships between frontline leaders and the investors, pension trustees, and Limited Partners (LPs) who hold the authority to set standards, demand accountability, and ensure that public capital truly serves the public.

Call to Action: Setting National AI Principles

Beyond specific sites of intervention, Majority Action calls for investors, asset managers, and policymakers to adopt responsible AI investment principles that protect communities, safeguard democracy, and ensure public funds are used for public benefit.

Join us as we redirect the power of capital toward safety, dignity, and shared prosperity for all of us.