Elon Musk: Billionaire wants to found his own city in Texas

Tech billionaire Elon Musk wants to turn a SpaceX site in Texas into a city. The company sent a letter to local authorities on Thursday asking for Starbase – the site where SpaceX builds and launches its Starship rockets – to be converted into a city. This is necessary for the further rapid development of the company and the expansion of the workforce.

There must be “the opportunity to grow Starbase as a community,” Kathryn Lueders, Starbase’s executive director, wrote in the letter. According to the company, residents of the area known as Starbase submitted the petition.

This is not the first time that converting Starbase into its own city has been considered. Musk proposed the idea in 2021 when he wrote in a social media post, “We are establishing the city of Starbase, Texas.” The county’s top elected official, District Judge Eddie Treviño Jr., said this is the first time, however, that a petition for incorporation has been formally filed. The petition will be examined and “whether it meets all legal requirements,” Treviño said on Thursday.

More than 3,400 SpaceX and contractor employees work at the Starbase site, according to a study released earlier this year. SpaceX’s rapid expansion in the region has sparked opposition from some local residents. In July, a group called Save RGV sued the company for alleged environmental violations and the discharge of polluted water into the nearby bay. SpaceX then said that a government investigation had found no environmental risks.

The area is located at the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. Earlier this year, Musk announced that he would move the headquarters of SpaceX and his social media company X from California to Texas.