Elon Musk’s Texas SpaceX launch site is set to become an official city known as Starbase.
Residents of the area near Boca Chica Beach went to the polls on Saturday to vote on a measure that would incorporate the neighborhood and call it Starbase, in honor of the tech billionaire’s rocket company.
Voters, most of whom work for Musk at SpaceX, appear to have voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move, according to The Associated Press on Saturday night.
The measure would give the company authority over a pocket of land along the Gulf coast.
According to Cameron County records, as of Saturday morning, two-thirds of the roughly 300 people eligible to vote, most of whom are SpaceX employees, had already cast their ballots.
The Independent has reached out to SpaceX for comment.
According to records, only 10 of the 247 residential lots in the area the community is seeking to incorporate are not owned by SpaceX or its employees.
At the end of last year, a petition was filed to make the 1.5-square-mile area a new municipality. This designation would allow the region to have its own governing body, emergency services, and school district, ABC News reported.
SpaceX has brought more than 3,400 jobs to the area, according to a 2024 annual report from the county, boosting the economy in an area where a quarter of its residents live in poverty.
“We need the ability to grow Starbase as a community,” SpaceX’s Starbase General Manager Kathryn Lueders wrote in a December 2024 letter to a county judge requesting an election to incorporate the area.
Leuders noted that SpaceX “currently performs several civil functions around Starbase…including management of the roads, utilities, and the provision of schooling and medical care for the residents.”
Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño, Jr. then set the date of the election and said in a statement: “If the election passes, this will be the newest town in Cameron County since Los Indios in 1995. We look forward to seeing the outcome of this election.”
Critics, like the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, have cited environmental concerns about whether the area should be incorporated. The group warned that the beach’s “ecosystem is under threat if SpaceX gains control over the area.”
Christopher Basaldú, co-founder of the group, told The Washington Post he used to visit the beach as a child. “These were pristine, beautiful lands, like, literally, a gem or a treasure of a beautiful beach, and also sacred lands of the original Indigenous people of the land,” he said. “I have no confidence that SpaceX is going to become a responsible neighbor just because they become officially a city. In fact, I think that things will get worse.”
The group is staging a protest at the beach on Saturday, just before polls close, to voice its opposition to Starbase’s proposed incorporation.
