Posted On: October 5, 2026

Source: Action News 5

Photo: Action News 5

• Memphis Mayor Paul Young said SpaceXAI alone generated $54 million in taxes between the city and county this year
• Young said Memphis is the only city with an ordinance requiring data centers to pay full taxes, with 25% going back to the adjacent community
• He compared that revenue to the equivalent of 12,400 housing units built in the city at $300,000 each

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Oct. 5, 2026) – Memphis Mayor Paul Young said SpaceXAI alone generated $54 million in taxes between the city and Shelby County this year, Action News 5 reported. Young spoke a day before a critical Memphis City Council vote on a proposed data center moratorium.

Young said significant tax dollars are generated by projects like data centers, and that Memphis is the only city with an ordinance requiring data centers to pay full taxes, with 25% of those taxes going back to the community most adjacent to them. “That’s the equivalent of 12,400 units of housing built in our city at $300,000 each,” Young said.

“We must do it in a way where our people are protected; I think that’s really important. They need to have confidence they’re protected,” Young said. He said governance includes addressing potential harms and maximizing the benefit to the community. Groups such as Memphis Community Against Pollution have raised concerns about air pollution, noise, effects on the water supply and rising energy prices.

Councilman JB Smiley Jr., the leading sponsor of the moratorium ordinance, told Action News 5 the council delayed an initial Sept. 15 vote to hear more community concerns. “One of the things that I heard consistently from the community is, ‘What about us? You can create laws, but you’re not talking to us,’” Smiley said. He said a temporary moratorium is not meant to shut the door on the industry, but to make sure the city understands what it is getting into. “What I don’t want to happen is we allow 20, 30 more data centers to come in and in a year’s time, data centers stop being the hot thing and we have 30 empty buildings,” he said.

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