Elon Musk wants to create his own city. His wish could soon be granted.
On Saturday, those who live around SpaceX’s rocket launch site in South Texas will vote on whether to incorporate the area as the city of Starbase.
The election is likely to go Musk’s way. That’s because most of the voters work for him.
The Texas Newsroom obtained a list of the 283 voters eligible to cast a ballot in the Starbase special election. More than three in five work for SpaceX, according to an analysis of LinkedIn profiles and social media posts documenting their employment. An additional 20 were among the dozens of people who signed a petition calling for the incorporation vote.
In total, that means at least two-thirds of the eligible voters either work for SpaceX or have already indicated their support for the new city of Starbase. The number could be much higher.
The eligible voters include everyone from plumbers to engineers and the CEO himself. It’s unclear whether Musk plans to show up for the vote.
Company towns are nothing new in America. SpaceX may be the first company to actually incorporate its own town in Texas, experts said, and could lay the groundwork for similar cities Musk plans to found here in future.
Election Day is May 3.
‘From thence to Mars’
SpaceX’s Starbase is about 20 miles outside of Brownsville. Here, Musk’s company is developing and testing the rocket eventually meant to take humans to Mars.
The complex is massive — a sleek, modern compound that runs for miles along State Highway 4. Other than Starbase, the area is almost completely rural, otherwise dominated by tidal flats, bays and rivers.
The state highway wends past the SpaceX rocket launchpad. The road ends at Boca Chica Beach, a public beach popular with locals that hugs the border with Mexico.
Boca Chica Village, a small beach town founded in the 1960s, sits in the compound’s midst. SpaceX has bought up almost all of the houses there, adding Airstream trailers and tiny homes for its employees.
SpaceX officials say only 10 of the properties are not owned by the company.
Musk has wanted Starbase to be its own city since at least 2021, when he posted the idea on the social media site X.
“Creating the city of Starbase, Texas,” he wrote. “From thence to Mars. And hence the Stars.”
Creating the city would “streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world class place to live,” said Starbase General Manager Kathryn Lueders in a letter to the county judge obtained by The Texas Tribune.
She said the company already established a clinic and school and, through agreements with the county, manages the roads and certain utilities. If incorporated, Starbase could take over those responsibilities as an official government body, she wrote.
Like any city, Starbase would also need to hold regular open meetings and share information about its spending and revenue with the public. This might open up the company itself to more public scrutiny and transparency.
“To continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community,” Lueders wrote.
Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño ordered the incorporation vote after at least 10% of the proposed city’s residents signed a petition. Local leaders do not have the power to block a new city from incorporating if this threshold is met.
If the vote goes Musk’s way, the city would become official as soon as the county finalizes the results. Treviño said Starbase would be the first new city in Cameron County in 30 years.
Musk also wants more control over closing the Boca Chica Beach for rocket launches if the vote passes. A bill to give the as-yet-unincorporated city of Starbase this control, is nearing final approved in the state Legislature. It is opposed by county officials and local environmentalists.
The new city would only include the area immediately around the SpaceX compound, according to a copy of the new city map provided by county officials. This includes Boca Chica Village and a smaller area down the state highway where a handful of executives have larger homes.
The city would be small, with fewer than 5,000 residents. Three people want to be the city’s new elected leaders. They all have links to SpaceX.
Company town to new city
Company towns may seem like an anachronism, a throwback from the days of Hershey, Pennsylvania or Gary, Indiana.
But tech leaders in recent years have taken the concept into the modern age, with companies like Meta and Apple creating corporate campuses in Silicon Valley to draw and retain the best employees in their fields.
Musk may be the first among these modern entrepreneurs to take the idea of his own city this far.
In Texas, he has built his corporate compounds in rural, unincorporated areas where he is subject to fewer city rules and regulations. In addition to Starbase, he has a corporate compound in Bastrop County adjacent to Austin where X Corp and the Boring Company, his tunneling firm, are headquartered. He has also floated the idea of also incorporating a part of that complex — called Snailbrook — as its own town.
A closer comparison than Apple or Meta might be Gary, Indiana, said author and journalist Hardy Green. U.S. Steel not only made many of the big decisions in Gary, including how to attract a labor force, it was so involved that it even laid out the street grid for the town.
“Every company creates a certain atmosphere,” Green said.
Whether benign or not, he added, they often leave the place with a “Big Brother-like feeling.” The upshot, he said, is that company towns that are run well end up being “showpieces” that provide amenities for the workers and give good publicity to the corporation — like Hershey, Pennsylvania.
“The town itself was like Willy Wonka-ville,” he said. “You're coming to this town where the very air smells like chocolate.”
So what does Musk want with his company towns? Green said if anything, he appears to be putting his own twist on an old concept.
“There's nothing new under the sun in a way. But I think that he'll try to make what he does seem unusual,” Green said. “He wants to be seen as futuristic and defining new frontiers.”
