Inside Elon Musk's new SpaceX city that'll sit on the US border with Mexico
Elon Musk's SpaceX base is to officially become a city after a vote was passed at the weekend.
Named Starbase, the new city is located in Boca Chica, Cameron County, Texas, near the southern tip of the state and bordering Mexico.
Musk began purchasing land in 2012 to develop SpaceX's rocket launch facility, which serves as the main testing and production location for Starship launch vehicles.
The first ever launch was memorable for all the wrong reasons; the spacecraft successfully took off, only to explode seconds later.
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Anyway, during Saturday's (May 3) election, 218 votes were cast, with an overwhelming majority - 212 - voting for the venture, while just six people opposed, results from the Cameron County Elections Department show.
On May4, Musk tweeted about it: "Starbase, Texas Is now a real city!"
Bobby Peden, a SpaceX vice president, will serve as the first mayor of Starbase after running unopposed.
He’ll be joined by two commissioners who likewise faced no challengers.
They are Jenna Petrzelka, a former operations engineering manager at Starbase and self-described philanthropist, and Jordan Buss, SpaceX’s senior director of Environmental Health and Safety.
Starbase will span about 1.6 square miles (3.9 square kilometers), and while Musk has kept quiet about what exactly lies ahead for the newly incorporated city, it's clear that the foundations are already in place.
So what else might be coming?
According to NBC News, neither SpaceX nor Musk have explained why creating an official city around the rocket company was necessary.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved an uptick in the number of Starship rocket launches from Boca Chica, from five per year under the previous license, now to 25 annually.
Rocket launches aside, Musk’s influence on the area has grown over the years in less conventional ways too.
For example, he renamed Weems Street to 'Memes Street,' and commissioned a 12-foot sculpture of his head - though the statue was recently vandalized.
However, the official boundaries of Starbase, as The New York Times reports, don’t include all the land owned by SpaceX.
One example is a SpaceX testing site that lies outside city limits, even though other major facilities - including a planned school - are within them.
The school, Ad Astra, was originally founded by Musk for his own children and now serves students aged 10 to 14 from around the world, with current enrolment at around 300. It emphasizes problem-solving, critical thinking, and collaboration.
Some of its founding educators later launched Astra Nova, a nonprofit, experimental online school.
Alongside the school, future plans for Starbase reportedly include employee housing, and even a sushi restaurant near Musk’s own modest $50,000 home.
However, not everyone is celebrating, as the project has raised concerns among local residents and environmentalists.
Critics argue that the privatization of land and infrastructure could reduce public access to areas like Boca Chica Beach.
Meanwhile, others have expressed concern over threats to local wildlife and coastal ecosystems, particularly as launch activity intensifies.
On social media, people have raised concern that the area has been prone to hurricanes - and that building a rocket launcher at sea level might not be the best of ideas.
Ellie Kemp