Elon Musk spent $1 billion on gas turbine company to power xAI data centers
Elon Musk has quietly acquired APR Energy, a Jacksonville-based company that operates a fleet of mobile gas and diesel turbines with more than 1 gigawatt of generation capacity, in a deal worth about $1 billion (about £770 million).
The transaction surfaced through a Federal Trade Commission early termination notice filed on May 14, 2026, rather than any public announcement. The valuation was derived from disclosures showing that a minority stakeholder, Duos Technology Group, received about $50.4 million for its 5 percent stake in APR Energy’s parent company.
APR Energy specializes in trailer-mounted gas turbines and reciprocating engines that can reach full power in less than 10 minutes and be installed in days, bypassing the multi-year permitting and construction timelines required for fixed power plants. The company’s website states it has supplied 375 megawatts to “the largest AI training system in the US,” and it expanded its fleet to more than 1.1 GW in January 2026 explicitly in response to rising data center demand.
The acquisition puts Musk, who built his reputation on electric vehicles and solar energy, in control of a fossil-fuel power company feeding the power-hungry data centers running xAI’s Grok chatbot. SpaceX, which acquired xAI in February 2026 before the company went public via an initial public offering in summer 2026, had already committed to spending more than $2.8 billion on gas turbines for data centers earlier in the year, according to federal filings.
xAI’s Colossus and Colossus 2 supercomputers in Memphis, Tennessee have been running, in large part, on unpermitted gas turbines, triggering lawsuits from environmental groups including the NAACP, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and Earthjustice. The groups have sued under the Clean Air Act after xAI installed about 35 turbines without proper permits or pollution controls, estimated to emit more than 2,000 tons of nitrogen oxides annually.
The Department of Justice intervened to keep the turbines operational, citing concerns over energy, economic, and national security. Residents of Boxtown, a predominantly Black neighborhood adjacent to the facility, already face cancer risks four times the national average.
Despite the legal challenges, xAI officials have indicated plans to replicate the turbine configuration for the Colossus 2 facility. By July 2026, the company had deployed 59 natural gas turbines near Memphis and Southaven, Mississippi.
Source: Tom’s Hardware; Electrek; Latitude Media