Not covered in the article are two critical reasons:

1. They're breaking environmental laws in order to meet power demands. xAI has already been busted on this [1], but they keep finding willing accomplices in rural parts of the country to bypass public opposition or speedrun through regulatory exceptions [2].

2. Companies seem to be fudging their numbers when it comes to GPU capacity & current workloads [3], likely to inflate their IPO valuations. I know Ed Zitron is a divisive figure but I've not seen any journalist on the other side of the argument provide the volume of data that he has.

[1] https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/10/musks-xai-draws-more-opposit...

[3] https://www.wheresyoured.at/where-are-all-the-data-centers/