Elon Musk’s dream of getting city status for his Spacex spaceport in the United States’ South Texas became a reality on Saturday, with 97.7 percent of voters backing the project of turning Starbase into a new municipality.
The Tesla CEO rejoiced with the news and posted on X, “Starbase, Texas is now a real city!”
Starbase is the facility and launch site for Musk’s rocket program, which is under contract with the Department of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It hopes to send astronauts back to the moon and, one day, to Mars as well.
The Texas base was launched in 2019, and the idea of Starbase was floated by Elon Musk in 2021, a report from The Associated Press said. Of the 283 eligible voters at the ballot were SpaceX employees at the Boca Chica Bay site bordering Mexico, or those who had connections to the company.
Musk confirmed the news of Starbase becoming a real city after polls closed and Cameron County published unofficial results. Remi Garza, Cameron County election coordinator, told AFP that Elon Musk registered himself to vote as well.
However, the SpaceX CEO had yet to cast his ballot when the early voting period closed on April 29. Documents reportedly showed that nearly 500 people live around the Cameron County base, where the land is mostly owned by SpaceX or its employees.
The ballot also named Bobby Peden, vice president of testing and launches at SpaceX, as Starbase’s mayor with 100 per cent of the early vote. His name was the only one on the ballot.
The Starbase vote comes in the backdrop of Musk’s decision to reduce his working time at the Department of Government Efficiency under the Trump administration and instead devote more time to his electric car company, Tesla.
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SpaceX’s general manager Kathyrn Lueders had also last year echoed Musk’s proposal for Starbase city and appealed to local authorities to grant the site city status. She had argued that the rocket company already maintained infrastructure there like roads, education services and medical care.
Concerns over environmental impact
While most of the people were enthusiastic about Starbase becoming a real city, some were not upbeat with the prospect.
Bekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, earlier raised concerns over environmental impact and warned of more “destruction”.
Hinojosa told AFP a day before the polling, “They would attempt more illegal dumping, they would build up their dangerous rocket operations and cause more seismic activity, cause our homes to shake, and that they would destroy more of the wildlife habitat in the region.”The SpaceX hub overlooks the Gulf of Mexico, renamed by President Donald Trump as Gulf of America, and there is already a row going over the access to the Boca Chica Beach.
Hinojosa said that SpaceX has had limited access to Boca Chica Beach for several years. She told AFP that she worried the vote would entirely cut off access to a beach that people’s “families have been going to for generations”.
The descendants of an Indigenous tribe in the region, Carrizo or Comecrudo Nation of Texas, also have complained about Starbase’s city status.
The Environmental Protection Agency and Texas authorities found in 2024 that Musk’s SpaceX was responsible for persistent spills and pollutant release into Texas waterways.
Musk had also responded to reports that SpaceX rockets had caused damage to wild bird nests and said, “To make up for this heinous crime, I will refrain from having omelette for a week.”
