As of Saturday, Elon Musk could have his own city in Texas. Employees at SpaceX’s launch station in Boca Chica were asked to vote on whether the enclave where they live should become an actual municipality called Starbase.
According to Bloomberg, there would be about 500 citizens of Starbase if it became a municipality. Two hundred and thirty-eight are actually employees of Musk’s company, whose gold mega-bust stands in the main plaza on Memes Street. The plaque with his name reads, “ELON aka Memelord”. The favored mayoral candidate is Bobby Peden, 36, SpaceX employee since 2013 and vice president of launch operations in Texas. The most popular restaurant, for employee use only, is Astropub, which features a neon sign that says “Occupy Mars”
This is not just a megalomaniacal ambition. Founding a municipality also means having legislative control within certain boundaries. According to Associated Press, the idea, first floated by Musk in 2021, could be motivated by the desire to have access to the area around the housing complex in order to increase space launches, from 5 to 25 per year. Currently each launch must be approved by the Cameron County administration so they can close access to the highway, the beach and Boca Chica State Park, frequented by tens of thousands of tourists.
Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. said there is no need to transfer authority of these spaces to SpaceX. Instead, several employees pointed to the company’s positive impact on the local economy as a result of a $4 billion investment and the creation of thousands of new jobs. “This rocket system,” Sheila McCorkle, the company’s vice president of the legal department, stated to Associated Press, “keeps the U.S. ahead of global competitors like China,” working with the Department of Defense and NASA.
