BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – MARCH 13: People spend time on the beach near the Starship Flight 3 Rocket a day before its scheduled launch at the Starbase facility near Boca Chica beach on March 13, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Texas has a brand new city, and its name is Starbase.
A vote Saturday to decide whether to turn part of south Texas into a new city centered around Elon Musk’s SpaceX delivered a victory to the tech billionaire and his rocket company. As expected, the measure passed with broad support, paving the way for a newly incorporated city made up almost exclusively of SpaceX employees and people connected to the company.
The initial vote tally was 173 in favor of incorporation and 4 against; only 143 votes were needed for the measure to pass.
“It’s officially statistically impossible for the measure to fail,” Cameron County Elections Administrator Remi Garza said Saturday night. “Cameron County is about to have a new city.”
Now that the vote has passed, commissioners in the county will canvass the results within two weeks, Garza said. A judge will then assign an order declaring the results of the election and the official incorporation of the new city.
The new city of Starbase covers about 1½ square miles at the southern tip of Texas, a coastal spot nestled against the Mexico border. The area is home to SpaceX headquarters, and it’s where the company builds its boosters and engines and launches its huge Starship rocket on test flights.
The ballot result was a much-needed win for Musk, who has faced widespread backlash over the past few months for his involvement with President Donald Trump’s administration. Musk was installed as chief of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and oversaw sweeping layoffs and cuts across federal agencies.
In response, protests against Musk erupted around the country and profits plummeted at the billionaire’s electric car company, Tesla.
Now, SpaceX will have the company town that Musk first publicly proposed in 2021.
In addition to incorporating the new city, Saturday’s election also selected Starbase’s first mayor — Bobby Pedden — and two city commissioners — Jordan Buss and Jenna Petrzelka. The candidates for all three positions ran unopposed, and all three are employees of SpaceX.
There were 283 people eligible to cast ballots in Saturday’s Cameron County special election, according to county election records. Eligibility was determined based on if a resident’s home would fall within the boundaries of the proposed new city.
Neither SpaceX nor Musk has detailed the purpose of incorporating a city around the rocket company’s operations. There has been speculation, however, that having greater municipal control of the area could ease some of the bureaucracy and restrictions around SpaceX’s tests and rocket launches.
At the moment, SpaceX must obtain permission from authorities in Cameron County to close a highway and shut down public access to Boca Chica Beach and Boca Chica State Park to keep people safe during rocket launches.
The frequent closures have contributed to legal complaints against SpaceX, and have drawn protests from local residents and activists, including the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, the South Texas Environmental Justice Network and Border Workers United, as reported by CNBC.
Now that SpaceX operates within the newly incorporated city of Starbase, things may soon change — though perhaps not without resistance.
“Right now that authority lies solely within Cameron County and my office, and we think that we’ve proven to be good collaborators and partners with SpaceX in their operations and also in making sure and providing enough notice and public access to Boca Chica Beach,” Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino told NBC News.
Trevino said any changes to the established procedures would be unnecessary.
“If it’s not broken, it doesn’t need to be fixed,” he said
