Photo illustration by Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica. Source images: Andrea Morales/MLK50, screenshot by MLK50, U.S. Air Force photo by Trevor Cokley via Wikimedia Commons

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with MLK50. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week.

Marilyn Gooch was already skeptical about one of her newest neighbors, xAI’s supercomputing facility, when her cousin walked across the street in June with a blue mailer from the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce.

Her cousin didn’t know what to make of the postcard featuring the logos of nine local, state and federal agencies and the chamber’s assurance that billionaire Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company operated “in full compliance with all applicable

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