A new city, Starbase, has been incorporated along the Texas Gulf Coast, fulfilling Elon Musk’s vision for a company town. The incorporation was approved over the weekend, with control of the new municipality granted to three SpaceX employees who ran unopposed. The election to incorporate Starbase concluded Saturday night, with 212 votes in favor and six against, easily clearing the 143 votes required.
Starbase is now a type C city in Texas, a designation for previously unincorporated communities between 201 and 4,999 inhabitants. The city includes the SpaceX launch facility and company-owned land within a 1.6 square-mile area.
The city’s leadership is comprised entirely of SpaceX employees. The mayor is Bobby Peden, 36, vice president for Texas test and launch operations at SpaceX. The two commissioners are Jenna Petrzelka, 39, a former SpaceX operations engineering manager, and Jordan Buss, 40, a senior director of environmental health and safety for SpaceX.
Musk began acquiring land in Boca Chica, Texas, about a decade ago for SpaceX. The site, known as Starbase, was the location of the first integrated Starship launch in April 2023, which resulted in a mid-air explosion. The aftermath of that explosion included a “3.5-acre fire started south of the pad site on Boca Chica State Park land,” as detailed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
SpaceX has faced fines from state and federal regulators for Clean Water Act violations and alleged repeated pollution of waters in the Boca Chica area. Environmental advocates and indigenous groups have also taken legal action against both the Federal Aviation Administration and SpaceX, alleging that the company’s flight tests and launch activities have caused harm to local habitat and endangered species through vehicle traffic, noise, heat, explosions, and fragmentation.
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