xAI offers to buy Mississippi homeowners' houses — as long as they promise not to sue over the data center
From the AI digest for Oct 28, 2026
What happened: A subsidiary of Elon Musk's xAI is offering to buy up homes in a Southaven, Mississippi neighborhood as long as residents don't join a lawsuit targeting the company's nearby data center and power plant, The Verge reported on Wednesday, October 28 (~10:44 AM ET), relaying reporting from The Guardian. A realtor going door-to-door in the neighborhood told one resident that xAI plans to purchase 418 homes, and that 18 homeowners already have plans to sell.
What's genuinely new: the first report tying the Southaven data center to conditional buyout offers — compensation for residents routed through a no-lawsuit condition rather than any settlement or regulatory finding over the noise and the on-site power plant.
Watch: how many sales actually close and on what terms; the status of the lawsuit the offers are designed to avoid; state or local regulatory attention to the noise complaints and the power plant.