Elon Musk’s new city puts SpaceX in the driver’s seat. Could public services be at risk?

Residents living near SpaceX headquarters in Boca Chica, Texas, will soon have a new public body through which to raise concerns about everything from road maintenance to garbage collection. Earlier this month, more than 200 residents voted to establish the city of Starbase, Texas—a 1.5-square-mile community governed by three elected officials, all of whom have ties to SpaceX, the space exploration company based in the area.

Of the 218 people who voted in the election—many believed to be SpaceX employees—only six opposed incorporation.

The news marks a win for Musk, who has wanted the area around his company’s headquarters to become a city since at least March 2021.

“It sounds like the city will be governed by a city commission comprising current and former SpaceX employees, who presumably answer to Musk,” says Lily Roberts, managing director of inclusive growth at the Center for American Progress, a think tank that published a report on the rise of the new company town in 2019.

Roberts believes SpaceX’s control of Starbase poses concerns. But Ajay Agrawal, a professor of management at the University of Toronto who has studied company towns and visited Starbase for a SpaceX launch before the incorporation effort began, sees potential upside.

Agrawal noted the area’s lack of infrastructure. “If SpaceX succeeds in its mission, then it will be like the Port of Los Angeles, except the gateway to space,” he says. What he saw during his visit, however, didn’t match that vision. “It struck me how underdeveloped the route [from the airport] was.”

The fact that the commission is composed of individuals with ties to Musk may give some observers pause. Still, the incorporation process introduces limits on the city’s authority. “They obviously can’t legally create some kind of independent society,” says Roberts. “They’re still subject to state and federal laws. Given how little Musk has demonstrated that he knows about how government works, I’m not sure that he knows that.”

Musk did not respond to Fast Company’s request for comment. However, he posted on X when the incorporation election was ratified by Cameron County’s election department: “Now, it is official!”

While Musk has welcomed the decision, Roberts argues that the company’s desire to incorporate a city is misguided. “Most businesses do not want to incorporate cities,” she says. “Businesses typically make a product or sell a service—they don’t want to worry about the sewer system or run a school district.” Nevertheless, they may now find themselves responsible for managing those services alongside the civic aspects they want control over.

“It sounds like SpaceX wants power over closing the public beaches and public roads during their launches,” says Roberts. “Because this is a relatively isolated area, they might want to find a faster track to building new housing. But all of the city services that come along with being a city seem far beyond what SpaceX is equipped to provide.”

Agrawal isn’t convinced that’s a problem. “Having visited the site, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had already taken over things like garbage management and security,” he says. “They would need far greater security than what sort of a local police force of that area would have had [for their launches].”

There are also checks and balances in place that prevent Starbase from seceding from federal oversight. “They will only be able to control, or certainly influence, municipal-level decisions,” says Agrawal. “They won’t be able to override federal or state rules.”

Even if the three elected commissioners wanted to manage everything from trash pickup to road maintenance—and hand control to Musk—there’s no guarantee that Musk has the capacity or interest to govern effectively. “I think that Musk has proven with DOGE that any skills he has are not transferable from business to government,” cautions Roberts. “He can’t find the cost savings he promised, he accidentally fired people who keep track of nuclear weapons and then had to rehire them, and he keeps claiming that people receiving Social Security are dead when they’re very much alive.”

Because of these issues, Roberts offers a cautionary note to potential residents: “SpaceX employees who move to Starbase may come to realize that there’s a huge difference between the campus model of big tech firms and a whole town where everyone—including the teacher and the firefighter, not just the scientists—has the same boss.”

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