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A vote in South Texas by those who live on the base of Elon Musk's SpaceX company has made the workplace Texas’ newest city, Starbase.
Musk, the SpaceX CEO and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) lead, posted late on May 3, after the vote, that Starbase, Texas “is now a real city!” As for next steps, a judge will need to assign an order declaring the results of the election and the official incorporation of the new city.
Musk—who has received intense backlash over the last few months as he leads DOGE to direct massive budget cuts and layoffs in the federal government—had proposed making the city of Starbase in March 2021 on X. A little over four years later, Musk’s dream is now a reality.
Starbase is the headquarters and launch site for the SpaceX rocket program, which is under contract with the Department of Defense (DoD) and NASA, working as a top launch site provider for the government. Musk’s company initiated the development of the site in 2014.
The city is only around one and a half square miles and a total of 218 people took part in the vote, per data from the Cameron County, Texas, elections department. 212 voted in favor of Starbase becoming a city, while six voted against.
A local Texas Newsroom analysis, published prior to the vote, showed that two-thirds of the eligible voters—of which there were 283—either worked for SpaceX or had already indicated their support. Meanwhile, the three candidates who ran for mayor and two commissioner positions also work for SpaceX, according to the Texas Tribune.
The newly-crowned city is located in Boca Chica, Texas, near Brownsville, on the southern tip of the Gulf Coast of Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. Its population currently stands at a little over 500 people—largely SpaceX employees and their family members—according to Bloomberg.
“Becoming a city will help us continue building the best community possible for the men and women building the future of humanity's place in space,” read a post on the “StarbaseTX” social media account, which was created on Musk's X platform, soon after the vote took place.
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