Elon Musk’s data center sued for $30 million by family of worker killed at site

Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI has been sued for $30 million after a man died after falling at the facility, according to a report.

​The incident took place in August 2025 at a network of data centers named Colossus in Memphis, Tennessee that were developed by xAI, later folded into SpaceXAI.

​The family of Alexis Vicent, an employee at Employer Solutions Staffing Group, say he fell from a mezzanine at the Colossus II site, according to a lawsuit filed in August 2026 and obtained by local paper The Commercial Appeal.

​The lawsuit states Vicent fell on his first day working at the site and alleges the mezzanine had no tie-off point for his harness, nor “the requisite guardrail systems, safety net systems, lifeline, a functioning personal fall-arrest anchorage system or adequate warnings in place.”

​Due to the alleged lack of safety protections, Vicent was unable to secure his harness, the lawsuit claims.

​“While transitioning between two elevated mezzanines, decedent fell approximately 25-30 feet to the concrete floor below, sustaining catastrophic injuries from which he died,” the document reads, per Commercial Appeal.

​The worker died in Florida in February, months after the fall, the family’s suit says.

​The Independent has contacted SpaceX and Butler Snow, a law firm representing SpaceXAI, about the allegations.

​Colossus I, the first facility at the cluster of data centers, opened in 2024 and was designed to train the AI tool Grok. Operations at Colossus II came online in January 2026 with expansions following throughout the year. ​The Colossus site is described on its operator’s website as its “gigafactory of compute.”

​​The Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated Vicent’s fall at the facility and found that the worker was “not protected from fall hazards while walking/working on and around the mezzanine area, thereby exposing him to a hazard,” the lawsuit obtained by Commercial Appeal reads. The Independent has contacted the TOHSA for further comment.

​Vicent’s family is seeking a jury trial and $30 million in damages, with $20 million of that amount representing punitive damages specifically. The lawsuit describes that amount as being “roughly 0.1 percent of the data center project investment costs.”

​The facility has been the subject of much criticism over its use of gas turbines to power the site, with the Southern Environmental Law Center announcing back in April that it - alongside Earthjustice - was representing the NAACP in a lawsuit against the site’s operators.

​“xAI’s continued operation of these turbines is not only illegal, it’s an insult to families living nearby who for months have expressed serious concerns about how air pollution from the company’s personal power plant could impact their health and wellbeing,” SELC Senior Attorney Ben Grillot alleged.

​The gas turbines were installed just south of the Tennessee-Mississippi state line, with the Colossus facility sitting north of the state line.

​In July, SpaceXAI released a statement announcing that it had agreed a timeline for the removal of the turbines with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. The company says all of the turbines will be removed by July 2027.

During an appearance by Musk on the All-In podcast, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell revealed that the tech CEO was living on-site at the Colossus facility.

​“This is Elon, by the way, doing what people don’t believe he does. He sleeps on the factory floor. He’s in Memphis, helping build buildings,” she said.