Big win for Billionaire Elon Musk, now owns ‘this’ city in the US

Elon Musk gets his own city in Texas, US, and now the SpaceX employees will be living in the area.

Elon Musk now officially owns a ‘city’ in Texas and has named it Starbase. The city was once a Texas launch site for SpaceX. SpaceX began buying land in the area in 2012, and SpaceX employees began residing in the area. On Saturday, May 3rd, The residents went on to vote in elections formally approving to incorporate the area as the new municipality. Out of 177 votes cast, 173 voted Yes and only 4 were against it. 

On X, Elon Musk shared “Starbase, Texas is now a real city!” 

About the Starbase

The new city covers about 1.6 sq miles (3.9 sq km) located remotely, where majority of the residents are SpaceX employees, having housing facilities and rocket factories.

The city which is near the Boca Chica, will have its own government. A Mayor and two commissioners will have governance over the ‘area specific’ and local issues. Bobby Peden has ben appointed as the first mayor, who is also the SpaceX Vice President. The two commissioners are still to be appointed.

Once sparsely populated, Starbase will be a Type C City- have around 500 people residing nearby the area, that will include 260 SpaceX employees and their families. Other workers will reside in the nearby city of Brownsville.

Elon Musk, billionaire and owner of multiple ventures, has shifted the headquarters to Texas due to more ‘favourable’ regulations. Musk aims to transform the space industry, With SpaceX affiliated government and regulations on taxes, SpaceX seeks to increase the number of launches its own starship propgrammes.

The transformation, however has been heavily criticised and have fined by the Environmental groups for causing pollution, disturbance to the wildlife, increasing waste in water bodies.