Residents – most of them SpaceX workers – in remote Texas community approve plan to create new city
Nick Robins-Early at The Guardian:
Voters in a small patch of south Texas voted on Saturday to give Elon Musk a town to call his own, officially creating a new city called Starbase in the area where Musk’s SpaceX holds rocket launches. A couple of hundred residents of what was previously known as Boca Chica decided to make their unincorporated neighborhoods into a town that will grant them the authority to pass city ordinances. The ballot, which also named a senior SpaceX representative as its mayor with 100% of the early vote, was never really in doubt. Most of the 283 eligible voters were SpaceX employees or had connections to the company, whose billionaire chief has long wanted a human mission to Mars. “Starbase, Texas,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X, “Is now a real city!” His post came after polls closed and unofficial results published by Cameron County showed an unambiguous 97.7% backing for the project. Musk himself is registered to vote, Cameron County election coordinator Remi Garza told Agence France-Presse, but the South African-born 53-year-old had yet to cast his ballot when the early voting period closed on 29 April.
The creation of Starbase puts Musk in the unusual position of holding sway over a company town, a distinction that has more in common with Gilded Age industrialists than most modern US businesses. It is a small victory for the world’s richest man as he pivots away from his job as de facto leader of the “department of government efficiency” – a role that has elicited furious backlash and hurt his public image as well as his businesses. Much like with Doge, Musk will not officially be in charge of Starbase. The entirety of the future city revolves around SpaceX, however, and it is almost entirely made up of the company’s employees and their kin. The Starbase population, as of 2025, is a little over 500 people, 260 of whom are SpaceX employees. The others are mostly family members of workers, according to Bloomberg.
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Opposing Starbase
The incorporation of Starbase has also faced protests and pushback from others in the area. The South Texas Environmental Justice Network activist group has been holding protests and urging Texans to email their state representatives to oppose the incorporation. The group argued that creating Starbase would allow SpaceX to close access to the public beach in the town whenever it wants and block others from using the public land. “Boca Chica Beach is meant for the people, not Elon Musk to control,” the organization said in a statement on its site. “For generations, residents have visited Boca Chica beach for fishing, swimming, recreation, and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe has spiritual ties to the beach. They should be able to keep access.”
A majority of voters in Starbase, Texas voted to incorporate as a city. Most of Starbase’s residents are employees of the Elon Musk-run SpaceX.
See Also:
AP, via HuffPost: Elon Musk’s Starbase On Its Way To Becoming A Texas City After Lopsided Early Voting Results
