You just cannot make some things up, and this just happens to be one of those stories.
In 2021, Elon Musk, the owner of X and Tesla, shared his aspiration for Starbase, the site where SpaceX launches its rockets into the Texas sky, to evolve into an independent city.
Now, it appears that’s exactly what’s about to happen, after an election on incorporation was held in Cameron County, Texas, on Saturday:
Today, residents of Boca Chica can cast their votes on the potential incorporation of Starbase as an official city pic.twitter.com/VVXQLafqWy
— Dima Zeniuk (@DimaZeniuk) May 3, 2025
via the AP:
Located at Texas’s southernmost edge, near the Mexican border, this area spans approximately 1.5 square miles (3.9 square kilometers). It features a network of roads and is dotted with airstream trailers and simple, midcentury homes.
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SpaceX representatives have informed lawmakers that allowing the city to control beach closings would facilitate smoother launch operations. The process of launching rockets, testing engines, and transferring specific equipment at SpaceX necessitates shutting down a local highway along with access to Boca Chica State Park and Boca Chica Beach.
All these measures come as SpaceX is asking federal authorities for permission to increase the number of South Texas launches from five to 25 a year.
The process kicked off in 2024, with a letter to county authorities from Kathryn Lueders, Starbase’s General Manager, who said the move was just common sense, as SpaceX was “manag[ing] roads and utilities, as well as ‘the provisions of schooling and medical care’ for those living on the property.”.
She continued, “We need the ability to grow Starbase as a community.” By the way, “those living on the property” can also be read as “the SpaceX employees and their families living on the property.” That’s who the majority of the residents are. Anyway, they quickly gathered the signatures needed to get the incorporation issue on the ballot.
So, voters headed to the polls on Saturday (and the final results have not been posted yet), but the early voting period showed the ballot initiative would likely be a winner, the South Texas Reporter wrote.
Out of 283 eligible voters, according to AP, almost 98 percent (173) of the people who voted early pulled the lever in favor of passing it. Four voted no. As the Reporter noted, “election day totals would not be enough to overtake those who voted to incorporate.”
Their report continued with more details on what this means:
Residents living near the Cameron County launch site voted overwhelmingly in favor of incorporating the community and, in so doing, also selected the town’s first city commission.
As unique elections go, this one in Texas rivals the ones in Dixville Notch, the tiny village in New Hampshire that prides itself as being the first place in the nation–just after the stroke of midnight–to cast its ballots in a presidential primary (you can usually tally the number of votes on one hand).
Congrats to the new citizens of Starbase–and Elon!
Starbase started with one shovel https://t.co/jwUfNQFHbx
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2025
S T A R B A S E pic.twitter.com/GCMZAecjnH
— Space Sudoer (@spacesudoer) May 4, 2025
