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Voters in South Texas delivered Elon Musk a decisive victory, overwhelmingly approving a ballot measure to establish Starbase, Texas, as its own city.
By a margin of 212 to 6, residents of the far-flung community surrounding SpaceX's rocket-launch site and headquarters voted resoundingly in favor of the incorporation effort, according to results posted on the county election website. At the same time, voters also approved the city's first elected officials, all three of whom are current or former SpaceX employees and ran unopposed.
Virtually all of the inhabitants within the 1.45-square mile territory are Musk's employees at the massive manufacturing facility that dominates the beachfront town, or their family members.
Incorporation isn't a free pass for Musk to adopt any and all regulations he wishes, but it will give the company unique authority to set the pace of its own development in the area. The new city commission will have authority over zoning, building projects and more pedestrian aspects of life.
Over the past seven years, SpaceX has reshaped the area known as Boca Chica, transforming the once sleepy retirement community into a thriving production site for the development of SpaceX's powerful Starship rocket, the vehicle by which Musk hopes to execute his long-standing dream to start a human settlement on Mars.
But SpaceX officials say the company has been unable to provide enough housing for the hundreds of workers who want to live near its headquarters. A recent attempt to build more townhouses was rejected by the county. About 260 SpaceX employees live in the enclave on the southern tip of Texas; their partners and families push the total population close to 500. An additional 3,100 workers commute from Brownsville, the closest big city, or other locales.
The town looks in some places like the set of a science-fiction movie, complete with futuristic manufacturing facilities, tidy rows of near-identical houses and a massive bronze bust of Musk.
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