https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/05/02/elon-musk-spacex-texas-starship-00317693
Right now, this roughly 1.5 square mile community is technically unincorporated Boca Chica Village. But on Saturday, the 200-odd residents — the vast majority of whom are SpaceX employees — will decide whether the land surrounding Musk’s massive rocket launchpad should become its own city: Starbase, Texas. It is an election that the region has been marching toward since December, when several dozen residents submitted a petition to South Texas’ Cameron County asking it to schedule an election that would incorporate Starbase as its own municipality. The move would give SpaceX increased autonomy, virtually its own government, and greater ability to build where and how it wants.
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The measure’s passage could lead to possible land grabs through eminent domain, diminished public beach access and less oversight of the company’s activities.
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Now, 100 years after the era of the company town, the richest man on Earth appears set on reprising the concept for the space age.
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As SpaceX was making moves toward a vote on Starbase, Musk’s company was also supporting a legislative package, one bill for the House, the other for the Senate, in the Texas statehouse. The identical bills would give municipalities with “spaceports” the ability to limit access to public beaches, a move which seemed specifically targeted at Boca Chica. That would mean SpaceX would have the right to close Highway 4 in Cameron County for any activity that involves space flight. Currently, only the county can close the highway.
The incorporation of Spacebase seems to be primarily a question of control for SpaceX. The new city would directly manage its building and permitting, eliminating regulatory hurdles it might have to jump through at the county level. It would control its own land use laws and local taxes, and would also allow it to apply for state and federal grants. Although the ability to shut down the highway for launches is helpful, a Starbase city would have autonomy that extends far beyond that.
To activists like Hinojosa, the bills are just the first step in a series of power grabs that will likely define the era of Starbase, Texas, which she views as part of the slow colonization of her hometown by the tech oligarchy.
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Within 15 minutes [of trying to canvas voters and campaign against incorporation], an unmarked white truck filled with what Treviño described as “mall cops with bullet proof vests” confronted the group and told them that they were on private property. Treviño challenged the men, who identified themselves as SpaceX security, asking why they had the right to boot canvassers off a public thoroughfare. The volunteers said security refused to answer their questions and again forcefully told them to leave. The group returned to their cars, surprised and scared, as they drove back toward Brownsville. (SpaceX did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
EDIT:
The vote’s in. 212 for, 6 against. Musk gets his city.
Phony Stark pivots to Phony Andrew Ryan.
Company towns are back on the menu, boys!
Presumably, Starbase scrip will have a Shibu Inu on one side and “In Elon We Trust” on the other.
And a QR code linking to a 10,000-word list of Terms & Conditions, with points like:
- “You are only granted a license to use Starbase Coin, not ownership, which remains with the issuer at all times.”
- “Your license may be revoked at any time and for any reason, including resigning from SpaceX, voting incorrectly in city elections, or saying mean things about the issuer.”
I say we give them their circle-jerk city, but they have to figure out 100% of their own goods and services with no help from anyone. We give them no labor to work, food to eat, material to build, or even attention beyond a hearty laugh at their embarrassing troubles. If all the nazi wannabes are in one hole, we can starve them in their own castle as we watch their narcissistic ineptitude crumble the house of cards to dust.
This is nothing more than a power trip saying “Look we can build a city, my dick isn’t microscopic, shut up”, and like a brat in the toy aisle, they will wither into oblivion if we just stop looking when they cry about it. Fight them, absolutely yes, but not in the way they want.
Five problems with that for me:
- “no help from anyone etc.”: effectively a complete embargo, never gonna happen.
- Effects on people inside the ‘city’ who aren’t Muskovites, e.g. most decisions affecting them would be in the hands of an oligarch, with one fewer check or balance on his power. I really can’t see how that’s a good thing.
- Effects on people inside the ‘city’ even if they work for SpaceX, see the fear and silence from them when campaigners tried to speak to them about voting against incorporation already when Musk/SpaceX is just their employer and their landlord, let alone their de facto mayor, too. (One may feel they ‘deserve’ it and could end it by ‘just’ leaving their jobs and homes, but I’d rather Musk didn’t succeed in advancing and increasing fear of him in anyone, including employees of companies he’s involved in.)
- Effects on people outside the ‘city’, e.g. Boca Chica Beach is the place people from Brownsville (pop. ~200,000) and around can spend some time at the seaside in what little free time they have, and Musk is doing everything he can to completely control (i.e. cut off) public access to the public beach.
- Effects on the environment, e.g. basically the entire delicate delta ecosystem will be completely open (even more than it is already, see Cards Against Humanity vs SpaceX) to being trashed for SpaceX development, eminent domain seizures etc.
Soon he’s going to have a statue like the Kims in Pyongyang.
Sooner or later, the cult of Musk will collide with the cult of Trump. There can be only one!
Like when that Qanon nut hired a sovereign citizen as a “lawyer” to represent them in court. It did not end well. IIRC the Qnut shot the sovcit dead.
Pretty sure he already has a fake bronze statue
