By Shawnee Calhoun

In Memphis, we know about paying more for less — when costs go up, but the reasons for price hikes fail to add up. And we recognize when events happening in other parts of the world hit hardest close to home.

Although the Iran war is winding down in the Middle East, its global economic impact is still running through our local communities — through gas stations where families are now spending more on fuel than in February, and through power lines connected to trillionaire Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer facilities across the state line, causing sharp increases in residential electricity bills.

When a U.S. president picks a fight with a foreign nation, who pays and who profits?

On Feb. 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran, disrupting the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway where 20 percent of the world’s oil passes daily. In retaliation, Iran closed the transportation channel. Within four weeks, the average national price for a gallon of regular gas here at home, nearly 7,000 miles away from the conflict, surged from $2.98 to $3.98, according to AAA.

But the burden of the price surge falls unevenly. Low-income households absorb a disproportionately larger share of rising fuel costs than wealthier ones, according to a May 2026 study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Families in low-income households spend 17.8% of their income on combined energy and transportation fuel costs — more than three times the national average, based on a 2024 report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. A $1 increase for a gallon of gas is not just an inconvenience for families already stretched thin. For them, it is a crisis.

It’s no surprise that rising gas prices drive electric vehicle demand. Yet, one automaker, Musk’s Tesla, delivered 54% of all vehicles sold in the U.S. EV market in the first quarter of 2026, more than every other automaker combined, up 11 percentage points from Tesla’s 43% segment share for the same period in 2025.

The carmaker’s good fortune could be a matter of political maneuvering on Musk’s part.

In June 2025, Musk publicly called the proposed Congressional One Big Beautiful Bill, which eliminated the federal EV tax credit, a “disgusting abomination” on his own social media platform, X, which triggered a rift between Musk and President Donald Trump. But the two men appeared to reconcile in late September at the Glendale, Arizona, memorial service of slain conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.

Five months later, the U.S. and Israel’s coordinated military campaign against Iran drove up gas prices and made electric vehicles more attractive. The gas-price effect seems to have delivered to Tesla the consumer demand that the lost tax credit would have generated, without attaching one cent of federal subsidy.

But trading a gas-fueled vehicle for an electric version may simply be shifting the financial burden from the pump to the utility meter for Memphis households – with Musk benefiting on both sides.

Musk’s xAI company operates supercomputers and data centers, including Colossus 1 and Colossus 2, in South Memphis, a predominantly black and working-class Memphis community, and in nearby Southaven, Mississippi, a small town adjacent to South Memphis and a 15-minute drive from the city’s downtown district.

Less than a year ago, xAI began installing gas turbines to power its facilities in Southaven, without air emission permits and without public notice to surrounding communities.

Meanwhile, the Tennessee Valley Authority approved a deal in February granting xAI up to 300 megawatts of power, enough to supply 75,000 to 150,000 homes with average daily usage. In April, the NAACP, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, filed a federal lawsuit under the Clean Air Act against xAI over the gas turbines, which now total at least 57 and remain unpermitted. In response, the Department of Justice announced on June 16, 2026, efforts to dismiss the civil rights advocacy group’s air pollution lawsuit, signaling support for xAI.

Although electricity costs for data centers increased 3% from 2022 to 2024, residential electricity prices rose 10%, according to a January 2026 Yale Climate Connections analysis. From 2020 to 2024, residential electricity prices rose 25%. Ordinary households are effectively subsidizing the artificial intelligence industry’s energy needs.

Still, Memphis residents can take steps to help ease the pain.

  • Research your household’s electricity rate trends before assuming an EV purchase saves money. After all, you still have to charge an electric vehicle.
  • Choose wisely before you buy an electric vehicle. The Hyundai IONIQ 5, Chevrolet Equinox EV and Nissan Leaf are competitive alternatives from automakers whose leaders are not openly involved in shaping foreign policy decisions that affect your fuel costs.
  • Use community transportation where available. Riding MATA buses, carpooling, biking and walking are ways to engage in collective economic resistance.
  • Advocate for new laws to protect your communities. Memphis has no laws restricting data center locations. Rocky Top, Tennessee, a rural town six hours northeast of Memphis, is looking to pass a new zoning ordinance to limit the construction of data centers to industrial districts that could serve as a model to set the agenda for Memphis neighborhood associations.
  • Learn to read proposed legislative bills that could affect you and your neighbors, and write to your representatives about the personal costs of failed policy decisions to build a record of accountability that outlasts any political season. Memphis public libraries offer free access to legislative records and civic education resources.
  • Contact state Sen. London Lamar and state Rep. Karen Camper, whose proposed cost protection bill, the Data Center, Artificial Intelligence and Clean Transition Tariff Accountability Act, would have required data centers to fund the grid costs they generate rather than passing costs to ratepayers. The bill deserves to return in 2027 with community pressure behind it.

Black and working-class Memphians have always been asked to absorb more than their share of the costs that benefit the powerful. The evidence is a matter of public record, and available for you to review.

Read the record. Follow the money. Organize accordingly.

Shawnee Calhoun is a Memphis-based journalist, published author, and wellness professional with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Memphis. She has written for Rockin’ God’s House and The Daily Helmsman and publishes at shawneeswriting.blogspot.com. The views expressed are her own.