Elon Musk’s Starbase city in Texas on brink of becoming official

An election on Saturday is likely to incorporate a new city on the southern tip of Texas dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.

Local residents are voting on incorporating a patch of land known as Boca Chica Village as a new municipality called Starbase.

Most of the 283 eligible voters are SpaceX employees, and most voted early, according to county records.

The creation of a new municipality would establish a local government with a mayor and two commissioners that would have power over planning, taxation and other local issues. But some nearby residents have opposed the measure and accuse the company of harming the local environment.

The proposed city covers about 1.6 sq miles (3.9 sq km) that was sparsely populated before SpaceX began buying land in the area in 2012.

Since then, company housing and SpaceX facilities have sprouted up, and Mr Musk has a residence in the area. Other evidence of the tycoon’s presence includes a road called Memes Street and a giant bust of the tycoon himself, which was recently vandalised.

Around 500 people are estimated to live nearby.

The possibility of incorporation as a city was rumoured for years before a petition submitted in December 2024 paved the way for Saturday’s vote.

If the measure is approved, the first mayor of Starbase will be Bobby Peden, a SpaceX vice-president who – along with two other local residents looking to fill the commissioner seats – is running unopposed. The BBC contacted Mr Peden for comment.

Starbase will be a Type C city – a category of municipality of fewer than 5,000 people and a designation that among other things will allow officials to levy a property tax of up to 1.5%, according to the Texas Municipal League.

If Starbase is incorporated, a bill currently winding through the Texas state legislature could give the new city’s officials the ability to close a local highway and limit access to nearby Boca Chica Beach and Boca Chica State Park during rocket launches and other company activity.

Currently closures around SpaceX launches are managed by Cameron County, which includes the nearby city of Brownsville and the resort town of South Padre Island.

The vote could set up tussles between county officials and Starbase over access to Boca Chica Beach as SpaceX looks to increase the number of launches at its Texas site from five to 25 per year.

The top official in Cameron County, Judge Eddie Trevino Jr, opposes the state bill that would allow Starbase control over closures.

In recent years Musk has moved many of his operations and corporate headquarters from California to Texas, citing more favourable regulation and his opposition to California’s Democratic Party-dominated politics.

The headquarters of his companies X and Boring are now on the outskirts of Bastrop, a small city near the state capital Austin and about a five-and-a-half-hour drive north of Starbase.

In contrast with Starbase, the development outside Austin does not include much new housing for company workers – most of whom live in Bastrop or other surrounding communities.

Environmental groups have criticised SpaceX’s impact on nearby wildlife, and say the company has increased light pollution and littered the area with debris from rocket launches.

In 2024 the company was fined nearly $150,000 (£113,000) by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for dumping waste water.

The company has called the fines the result of “disagreements over paperwork” and maintains it follows environmental laws. The BBC approached SpaceX for comment.