TEXAS – The SpaceX company has a new mission, to turn the Starbase space base into a Texas city.
Elon Musk’s company sent a letter to local authorities requesting an election to turn Starbase, the facility in South Texas where SpaceX builds and launches its Starship rockets, into an incorporated city.
According to the company, area residents filed the petition.
Located in Boca Chica Beach, near the Mexican border, Musk announced a few months ago that he was moving the headquarters of SpaceX and its social networking company X from California to Texas.
“To grow the workforce needed to develop and manufacture Starship more quickly, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community. That is why we are requesting that Cameron County call an election to allow Starbase to incorporate as the newest city in the Rio Grande Valley,” wrote Kathryn Lueders, Starbase’s general manager, in a letter to the county.
Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
This is not the first time the possibility of turning Starbase into a city has been raised. Musk proposed the idea in 2021 on social media, “Creating the city of Starbase, Texas.”
More than 3,400 SpaceX employees and contractors work at Starbase, according to a local impact study issued by Treviño earlier this year.
Some residents have opposed SpaceX’s rapid expansion in the region.
