McALLEN, Texas (AP) — SpaceX is launching a new mission: turning its Starbase into a new Texas city.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s company sent a letter to local officials on Thursday calling for elections to turn what it calls Starbase, the South Texas where SpaceX builds and launches its large Starship rockets, into an incorporated city. Residents of the domain known as Starbase filed the petition, according to the corporation.
The domain is on the southern tip of Texas, on Boca Chica Beach, near the Mexican border. Earlier this year, Musk announced that he would move the headquarters of SpaceX and its social media company X from California to Texas.
“To continue to grow, the workforce wanted to expand and manufacture Starship, we want the city to grow Starbase as a community. “That’s why we’re asking Cameron County to call an election to allow Starbase to be incorporated as the last city in the Rio Grande Valley,” Starbase CEO Kathryn Lueders wrote in a letter to the county.
This isn’t the first time Starbase has had its own city. Musk proposed the concept in 2021 when he wrote a social media post that simply said, “Create the city of Starbase, Texas. “
Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr., the county’s top elected official, said despite the talks of incorporation in 2021, this was the first time a petition was officially filed.
“Our legal and electoral management will review the petition, see if it meets all the legal requirements and then we will move on from there,” Treviño said Thursday.
More than 3,400 full-time SpaceX artists and contractors work at the Starbase site, according to a local study published by Trevino earlier this year.
SpaceX’s rapid expansion in the region has drawn pushback from some locals. Earlier this year, a group called Save RGV sued the company in July over allegations of environmental violations and dumping polluted water into the nearby bay. SpaceX said in response that a state review found no environmental risks and called the lawsuit “frivolous.”