Chaos erupted at the end of a Tennessee city council hearing when officials postponed a vote on Elon Musk’s data centers, sparking a fistfight and protesters taking over the meeting hall.
A mob of enraged protesters harassed members of the Memphis City Council Tuesday night after they had just voted to delay the vote on a moratorium of data centers in the city.
Councilors voted 7 to 5 Tuesday night to table the remaining items on the agenda for a later date before the meeting devolved into a loud disarray of shouting between council members and the residents.
One protester broke out a bullhorn and began to lead a chant of “ain’t no power like the power of the people.”
Council Chairwoman Jana Swearengen Washington had called for a recess to the meeting and ordered police officers to clear out the hall, according to a livestream.
The frenzied mob worked its way to the dais and began shouting at the city councilors who were huddled around.
The protesters accused the elected officials of being “sellouts,” according to video from KWAM News Radio.
Officers had successfully removed the protesters from the meeting hall as the mob continued to shout “this is our city” and “show me what democracy looks like.”
At least two women engaged in a fight near the exits during the chaotic meeting, but no arrests were made, WREG reported.
Roughly 100 protesters had attended the meeting for the scheduled final vote on the data centers that sit south of the city on the Memphis, Tenn.-Southaven, Miss. border.
Two large data center facilities, named Colossus and Colossus 2, are run by Musk’s artificial intelligence company SpaceXAI.
The original Colossus facility was built to serve X’s Grok AI bot but was later part of an agreement in May that will see Anthropic use the full computing power of the facility
The delayed motion was rescheduled to October 20, Action News 5 reported.
If passed, a 12-month moratorium would be enacted on data centers to allow for a study on the impact the facilities have on the city’s health, engineering, power and water infrastructure.
City council infighting occurred amid the chaos as one councilor accused another of confusing people.
“That’s all he does; he brings up mess, he… that’s all you do, JB Smiley, confuse the people over, over, over and over! Anytime there is an election,” Councilwoman Yolanda Cooper-Sutton, according to Action News 5.
Councilman Smiley, who voted against delaying the vote, called for a civilized discussion on the subject instead of the shouting and fighting.
“When the community shows up, we just have to listen to them. I’m disappointed that we didn’t listen with ears, okay, I hear you, I understand. Let’s figure out how we can do what you want, but also what we believe would be in the best interest of the community,” said Smiley, who was the lead sponsor on the moratorium proposal.
Councilman Jeff Warren, an opponent of any moratorium, warned that the year-long pause would give incentive to companies to not do business with the city and find another area to build the complexes.
“If we pass a moratorium, there’s not reason for them to think they need to come here. They get the same benefit from going to Desoto County, Crittenden County, Fayette County, Tipton County,” said Councilman Jeff Warren Tuesday.
