Elon Musk says SpaceX's AI could soon draw as much electricity as New York City in a heatwave — what that means for your power bill

Musk went bigger, saying the tentative target is 20 gigawatts of power and cooling by the end of next year. Then he undercut himself in the same answer: “I don’t think we’re going to achieve 20 gigawatts.” The realistic number, he said, is closer to 15.

New York City needs more than 10,000 megawatts at peak in an extreme heat wave, according to a July report from Comptroller Mark Levine, so even Musk’s low figure is a city’s worth of power.

SpaceX spent about $18.4 billion in three months, roughly $15.8 billion of it on AI compute infrastructure. That is double the previous quarter, with the same pace planned for at least two more. Investors balked and the stock fell about 8% on Aug. 5.

What 15 gigawatts looks like on the ground

Mississippi regulators approved a permit in March for 41 gas turbines in Southaven, just over the state line from SpaceX’s Memphis data centers, which puts them under Mississippi’s oversight rather than Tennessee’s. The company says the plant will produce 1.2 gigawatts and let it retire the 69 temporary turbines it has been running.

The agreed order with the state blames supply chain problems for delays on the permanent turbines, so that one project is already behind schedule. Musk needs about a dozen more like it in under 18 months.

In response to Moneywise’s request for comment about the delays, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) said only that “the agreed order speaks for itself.”

SpaceX did not respond to Moneywise’s request for comment in time for publication.

How data centers push up power bills, even far away

Utilities don’t buy your power the month you use it. They buy it years ahead at auction, based on how much demand they expect. When data centers pile into those forecasts, prices go up and the cost lands on customers. SpaceX builds its own generation, so its plants never clear one of those auctions. But it bids for the same turbines and transformers your utility needs and the shortage that delayed Southaven is the shortage utilities are buying into.

PJM Interconnection runs the grid for 67 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C., and its capacity price for 2026/2027 came in at $329.17 per megawatt-day, up from $269.92 the year before.

Joseph Bowring, who monitors that market independently, says data centers account for $29.4 billion of $63.6 billion in capacity charges over the last four auctions. Households in those states pay a share of that.

In a statement to Moneywise, Jeffrey Shields, the senior manager at PJM for external communications, described “unprecedented growth in electricity demand, driven largely by data centers and other large loads,” pointing to an all-time peak demand record this summer as evidence.

Prices climb, Shields said, when demand outruns the new generation.

However, a May study from Energy + Environmental Economics, paid for by the Data Center Coalition, found no historical evidence that data centers push costs onto households, though one author, Kush Patel, added that the past guarantees nothing and the risk ahead is real.

The Data Center Coalition did not respond to Moneywise’s request for comment iin time for publication.