They promised hundreds of jobs.
The contract says twenty.
xAI's subsidiary MZX Tech, LLC is building a data center in Southaven under the codename “Project Synergy.” The City and DeSoto County signed an agreement abating two thirds of its property taxes for up to ten years. Everything on this site comes from documents the City itself released — not from rumour, and not from us.
The numbers, from the signed record
Each figure below is quoted from a document on this site. Click any source to read it.
Documented, promised, and still unanswered
A promise is not a contract, and a contract is not a receipt. This site keeps the three apart on every page. Community fact sheets circulating in July listed the size and length of the tax break as secrets nobody outside the room knew. They are not secret. They are written in the agreement the City released, and they are reproduced below.
✓ Documented
- 67% of ad valorem taxes abated — the fee is a stated one third of taxes otherwise payable
- Up to ten assessment years
- At least twenty new jobs — the only job number in the contract
- Binds future City and County boards, not just the ones that signed
- $6,690,900 paid or pledged to the City and its police department
- 16.5 million gallons of city water billed to MZX Tech in 132 days
? Promised
- “Hundreds of permanent jobs” — no figure appears in the agreement
- $60 million a year to DeSoto County by 2028
- $20 million a year to Southaven's general fund
- A $12.8 million sound wall
- New police, fire apparatus and roads — contingent on money arriving
● Unanswered
- What the abatement is worth in dollars. No official has published the total
- Whether any board vote was ever taken in public on each payment
- Whether air permits exist for the turbines at the site
- What the schools receive under the apportionment
- Any clawback if the twenty jobs never appear
Every item in the third column is a public records request away. Mississippi gives a custodian seven working days to answer, and if they refuse, the Mississippi Ethics Commission hears the complaint for free and can order the records released. We will file it for you, or you can file it yourself →
What they said, and what they signed
Start here
The Deal
The Ad Valorem Tax Agreement, clause by clause: how much is abated, for how long, who is bound, and what xAI actually committed to.
Read the agreement →The Payments
$3.46M for roads, $1.85M from the Musk Foundation, $1,380,900 to the police department — and the dates they land relative to the tax vote.
See the sequence →Water
16.5 million gallons billed to MZX Tech in 132 days, read straight off the City's own water bills, meter by meter.
See the meter reads →Documents
Every record the City has released, hosted in full, summarised in plain English, with the redaction log.
Open the library →File a Records Request
We file it as the Foundation so your name stays off it, and we publish whatever comes back. Seven working days by law.
File a request →Anonymous Tip
If you work for the City, the County, or on the site and something looks wrong, tell us. We do not log your address.
Send a tip →Southaven is the first, not the last
ExposeMississippi covers the whole state. Southaven is where it starts — because Southaven residents did the work first. The Safe and Sound Coalition filed the records requests that produced every document on this site, and DeSoto County is where the largest of these deals landed. That earns the first slot.
Each city gets its own subdomain as it comes online, and Southaven's home is permanently southaven.exposemississippi.com — so nothing published today breaks when the next town is added. Until then the front door lands here.
Abatement negotiated behind closed doors, promises with no signed paper behind them, records requests that go unanswered — if that is happening where you live, tell us. The method on this site travels: the statute, the seven-working-day clock and the free Ethics Commission appeal are the same in all 82 counties.
Get the next document when it lands
One email when a request comes back or a new record is published. Nothing else, ever.
The Move Weight Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We are not affiliated with the City of Southaven, DeSoto County, the State of Mississippi, xAI, or MZX Tech, LLC.