A Texas county on Wednesday approved holding an election sought by SpaceX that would let residents living around billionaire Elon Musk’s company decide whether to formally create a new city called Starbase.
The election was set for May 3 and votes can only be cast by residents living near the launch site that is currently part of an unincorporated area of Cameron County, located along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In December, more than 70 area residents signed a petition requesting an election to make Starbase its own municipality. Most of the residents are company employees and the community includes more than 100 children, according to copies of the petition obtained by The Associated Press.
Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño said the county reviewed the petition and found it met the state’s requirements for the incorporation process to move forward.
“If the election passes, this will be the newest town in Cameron County since Los Indios in 1995,” Treviño said in a statement. “We look forward to seeing the outcome of this election.”
SpaceX responded to a request for comment by referring to the company’s earlier statement in December.
Kathryn Lueders, Starbase’s general manager, previously said that the incorporation would streamline certain processes to build amenities in the area. Some local environmental advocates have expressed worry about what the effects would mean for development.
SpaceX’s launch site broke ground in Texas in 2014. Only 10 of the roughly 250 lots of land within the proposed new city limits do not belong to the company.
More than 3,400 full-time SpaceX employees and contractors work at the Starbase site, according to a local impact study issued by the county last year.
Musk has long been planting business roots in Texas and has spread them far and wide across the Lone Star State. The billionaire moved to Texas in 2020 and relocated to or expanded a number of his companies in the state, citing the state’s business-friendly climate.
Tesla’s massive 10-million-square-foot (930,000-square-meter) Gigafactory, where the company makes its Cybertrucks, opened near Austin in 2022 and will also serve as the company headquarters.
—Valerie Gonzalez, Associated Press
Jelentkezéshez jelentkezzen be
EGYÉB POSTS Ebben a csoportban
“Meta profits, kids pay the price,” was the message delivered by dozens of grieving families at the doors of Meta’s Manhattan office on Thursday.
Forty-five families traveled from
The world’s auto industry is getting a shake-up from Chinese automakers that
There’s Blue Sky and then there’s Bluesky.
Blue Sky, a paper goods company
Google’s profits soared 50% in this year’s opening quart
One of the central arguments in the ongoing antitrust trial against G
The AI revolution is redefining business and tech leadership—and no one is standing more squarely on the front lines than product leaders.
Once seen as a behind-the-scenes role, the CPO
It has taken a little over five months and has been
