While Elon Musk is busy dismantling the federal government, he’s also been building his own private cities to surround his company headquarters in remote parts of Texas. In April, employees at SpaceX’s South Texas location?will vote on incorporating?their private space tourism campus into a city called Starbase. Located 40 miles east of the border town Brownsville, Starbase was already encroaching on the unincorporated town Boca Chica Village, a small community of snowbirds that lived in nearly-off-grid bungalows surrounded by state and federal parks. Boca Chica Village has become unrecognizable over the last decade since Musk brought his company to South Texas. SpaceX has built two launch pads for its Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, as well as a sprawling production facility and a cluster of houses and airstream trailers with?perks for employees?like Tesla chargers, e-bikes, a medical facility, and a private bar called Astropub. In 2019, SpaceX tried to buy out the winter Texans in Boca Chica Village, saying that it was no longer safe to live near the SpaceX launchpad. At the same time, SpaceX was slowly moving employees into the homes and building new blocks parallel to the original streets. Musk has also established a town outside of Austin called?Snailbrook, where he plans to move X headquarters. Snailbrook is already home to a SpaceX campus and his tunneling company called Boring and Musk has spent?hundreds of millions?of dollars to establish a private school for his employees’ children. Musk sold hope for the towns to climb out of stagnation into growth. Instead, SpaceX has caused earthquakes, rampant workplace injuries, skirted regulations, threatened wildlife, and displaced local communities, while securing millions in corporate welfare. We went to Texas in January, just as SpaceX was gearing up for the seventh launch of its Starship, and this is what we unraveled.
