SpaceX plans to turn Starbase site into a new Texas City

Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, has taken steps to turn its Starbase site in South Texas into an official city, reports a Kazinform News Agency correspondent.

On Thursday, the company sent a letter to local officials requesting an election to incorporate Starbase. According to SpaceX, residents of the area submitted the petition.

Starbase is located at Boca Chica Beach, near the southern tip of Texas close to the Mexican border. Earlier this year, Musk announced that he was moving the headquarters of SpaceX and his social media company X from California to Texas.

“To continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community. That is why we are requesting that Cameron County call an election to enable the incorporation of Starbase as the newest city in the Rio Grande Valley,” said Kathryn Lueders, general manager of Starbase, in the letter.

This isn’t the first time the idea has come up. In 2021, Musk posted on social media, “Creating the city of Starbase, Texas.”

Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr., the county’s top official, said this is the first time a formal petition has been filed.

“Our legal and elections administration will review the petition, see whether or not it complied with all of the statutory requirements and then we’ll go from there,” Treviño said on Thursday.

The Starbase site currently employs over 3,400 full-time SpaceX workers and contractors, according to a local impact study released earlier this year.

However, SpaceX’s expansion has faced some opposition. In July, a group called Save RGV sued the company, accusing it of environmental violations and dumping polluted water into the nearby bay. SpaceX dismissed the claims, saying a state review found no environmental risks and called the lawsuit “frivolous.”