Elon Musk’s Starbase in Texas will officially become a city

The area where Elon Musk’s SpaceX Company is active on the southern point of Texas is to be officially called a city called Starbase.

Residents approved the absorption of a piece of land that is known as the new municipality in an election on Saturday.

Most of the 283 eligible voters are SpaceX employees. Results published online by Cameron County Show 212 votes before six opponents. Billionaire Musk wrote: “Starbase, Texas is now a real city!” On his social media platform X.

The new city covers approximately 1.6 square miles (3.9 square kilometers) that was sparsely populated before SpaceX started to buy land in 2012.

The government of the city will consist of a mayor and two commissioners who have power over planning, taxation and other local issues. But some residents in the neighborhood have opposed the measure and accused the company of harming the local environment.

Since SpaceX, buying land in the area, business housing and SpaceX facilities have emerged and MR Musk has a home. Other proof of the presence of the Tycoon includes a road called Memes Street and a gigantic bust of the Tycoon itself, which was recently destroyed.

An estimated 500 people live in the area.

The possibility of establishing as a city was rumors for years before a petition laid out in December 2024 for the mood of Saturday.

The first mayor of Starbase is Bobby Peden, a vice-president of SpaceX. Peden did not encounter, just like two other residents with SpaceX tires that will fill the two commissioner seats.

The BBC contacted Mr Peden for comments.

Starbase becomes a type C city – a category of the municipality of fewer than 5,000 people and an indication that will enable civil servants, among other things, to levy a real estate tax to 1.5%, according to the Texas Municipal League.

A bill that is currently running through Texas’s state legislator can give the officials of the new city the opportunity to close a local highway and to limit access to nearby Boca Chica Beach and Boca Chica State Park during rocket launches and other business activities.

Currently, closures around SpaceX launches are managed by Cameron County, including the nearby city of Brownsville and the resort town of South Padre Island.

The result of the vote could set up a sausage between provincial officials and Starbase about access to Boca Chica Beach, because SpaceX wants to increase the number of launches on the Texas site from five to 25 a year.

The top officer in Cameron County, judge Eddie Trevino JR, opposes the Staats Act that makes Starbase control possible about closures.

In recent years, Musk has moved many of his activities and the headquarters from California to Texas, with reference to more favorable regulations and his opposition against the politics dominated by the Democratic party in California.

The head office of its companies X and boring are now on the outskirts of Bastrop, a small city near the capital Austin and about five and a half hours to the north of Starbase.

In contrast to Starbase, the development outside Austin does not contain many new homes for business workers – whose most of them live in Bastrop or other surrounding communities.

Environmental groups have criticized the impact of SpaceX on the nearby animals in the wild and say that the company has increased light pollution and has littered the area with rubble of rocket launches.

In 2024, the company was fined almost $ 150,000 (£ 113,000) by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for dumping waste water.

The company has mentioned the fines the result of “disagreements about paperwork” and maintains that it is following environmentalets. The BBC approached SpaceX for comment.