Explained: What is Starbase, the city Elon Musk is building in Texas?

Elon Musk is moving forward with plans to create a dedicated town for SpaceX and its employees in Texas.

In recent years, Musk has expanded his operations in the state, relocating his companies from California and establishing offices, warehouses, and manufacturing facilities across several Texas counties.

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Now, Musk is venturing into a project that few, if any, titans have attempted: the creation of a company town.

Since SpaceX set up operations on the Texas coast a decade ago, Musk’s company has generated thousands of jobs near the Mexico border, launched several rockets, and built new homes in an area known as Starbase.

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What is Starbase?

Starbase is the name Elon Musk has proposed for a new town in coastal South Texas, centred around the SpaceX rocket launch site.

Musk expects to transform this area into an official city dedicated to supporting SpaceX operations and its employees.

Since moving to Texas in 2020, Musk has expanded or relocated several of his companies to the state, citing its business-friendly climate.

In July, Musk announced plans to move the headquarters of SpaceX and the social media platform X to Texas from California, describing a new gender identity law in California as “the last straw.” In September, Musk relocated X’s headquarters from San Francisco to Bastrop, Texas, leaving behind its California home of over a decade. In 2021, Tesla’s headquarters also moved to Texas, although California remains its engineering hub.

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The SpaceX launch site, already known as Starbase, has become home to many employees who live in refurbished midcentury houses or temporary accommodations, including silver Airstream trailers, in the shadow of SpaceX rockets.

Earlier this month, SpaceX employees living near the site took the first major step toward incorporating Starbase as a town by gathering signatures and filing an official petition to hold an election.

Notably, the petition offers some of the first insights into the size and operation of the proposed city, as envisioned by Elon Musk and SpaceX, according to The New York Times.

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The Starbase petition discusses a community of approximately 500 current inhabitants, including at least 219 primary residents and over 100 children. This area is located at the very end of State Highway 4 near Boca Chica Beach, the site of many SpaceX rocket launches.

SpaceX HQ will now officially be in the city of Starbase, Texas! https://t.co/zpN4t3mJQT

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 13, 2024

The proposed town would cover around 1.5 square miles, making it slightly larger than Central Park but small by Texas standards.

According to the petition, nearly all residents are renters and work for SpaceX.

Why Elon Musk wants to create a separate city for SpaceX employees

The Starbase site currently employs over 3,400 full-time SpaceX workers and contractors, according to an impact study released earlier this year by Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr.

Musk has been considering the idea of turning the SpaceX launch site into a city for several years. Notably, SpaceX first approached officials in Cameron County, Texas, about the plan in 2021.

However, the petition does not clarify why Musk and his company are seeking to create the new town of Starbase or what specific benefits they hope to gain from doing so.

Previously, the company had expressed interest in merely changing the area’s name for postal delivery purposes, and an application to do so is currently pending with a federal agency.

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What are the possible changes?

Robert Greer, an associate professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, has studied how cities incorporate. He explained to AP that creating a city involves drafting its own charter, providing services, creating local ordinances, and levying taxes. This could also shift the tax burden onto residents or businesses.

“If you create your own city, and it’s a relatively small area now, you have kind of control over that area,” Greer said.

SpaceX officials argue that incorporating Starbase as a city is necessary to continue expanding the area’s workforce and supporting the company’s growth.

“Incorporating Starbase will streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world-class place to live - for the hundreds already calling it home, as well as for prospective workers eager to help build humanity’s future in space,” Kathryn Lueders, Starbase’s general manager, stated in a letter to the county this week.

However, SpaceX has faced local opposition regarding its impact on the area. Most recently, they were hit with a lawsuit from Save RGV, a regional nonprofit, which accused SpaceX of dumping polluted water into the nearby bay. SpaceX responded by stating that a state review found no environmental risks and labelled the lawsuit as “frivolous.”

Jim Chapman, a board member of Save RGV, said, “Some of the questions that we have is what this will mean in terms of regulation and oversight by the county.”

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What’s next?

This month, residents took a major step toward creating a new city by filing a petition with Cameron County to hold an election. If approved, the election would allow voters to select three city officials, including Gunnar Milburn, SpaceX’s security manager, as the proposed first mayor.

As a city, Starbase would be eligible for state and federal grants, would enjoy certain immunity from lawsuits, and could also have the power to condemn property, The New York Times reported.

In a letter filed with the petition, Kathryn Lueders stated that the company needed “the ability to grow Starbase as a community,” adding that SpaceX “currently performs civil functions” due to its remote location, including managing utilities and providing schooling and medical care.

With inputs from agencies