Fight about data center pause builds at City Hall
Memphis City Council member Jerri Green, middle, attends a council meeting July 21. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)
The political fallout from SpaceXAI’s rapid data center buildout in Memphis rippled through City Hall again Tuesday, Sept. 1, as some began to push back on a proposed data center moratorium.
The proposed moratorium, which would block the issuance of building permits or site plans for new data centers in the city, came in mid-August. Data centers have become a dominant political issue nationwide in 2026, two full years into SpaceXAI’s data center buildout within the Memphis city limits.
As the Memphis City Council prepared to take the second of three necessary votes on the moratorium ordinance during its full meeting Tuesday, efforts emerged to find middle ground. Two council members proposed new regulatory frameworks to govern data centers, and other members attempted to use procedural maneuvers to delay those items.
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Samuel Hardiman
Samuel Hardiman is an enterprise reporter who focuses on government and politics. He began his career at the Tulsa World where he covered business and K-12 education. Hardiman came to Memphis in 2018 to join the Memphis Business Journal, covering government and economic development. He then served as the Commercial Appeal’s city hall reporter and later joined The Daily Memphian in 2023. His current work focuses on the intersection of government, public policy, influence and how public dollars are spent.
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