In 2023 we already told you that Elon Musk had considered building his own utopian city to house the employees of his companies. Beyond being a common wish among millionaires, the project of building their “Eloncity” seems to be fell into oblivion. But then it came a judge in Delaware that changed everything, and transformed the quiet life of a small Texas town.
Bastrop, Elon Musk’s new headquarters. Just 40 minutes from Austin, Bastrop was until recently a quiet city of just 12,000 residents with rural roots. Today, Bastrop has become the epicenter of Musk’s empire, and the place where wants to move the headquarters of all his companies.
Since 2021, his companies have transformed the landscape of Bastrop, attracting jobs, investment and more than a little controversy. How I published Fortunenot all locals welcome the massive arrival of Musk’s employees.
The Boring “City”. The Boring Company is Elon Musk’s company that has been based in the city the longest, and this is evident in the appearance of places such as the Hyperloop Plaza shopping and leisure center, where the Boring winery is located.
This center has become a meeting point for company employees who reside in a new development made up of 21 two- and three-bedroom houses built for them. As Forbes publishedElon Musk plans to soon open his Montessori school Ad Astra in that center.
Musk’s tunneling company, Boring Company, has a research and development center in the city and its employees can be identified by the “Tunnel Mars” messages on their T-shirts. The inhabitants of Bastrop have already had their ups and downs with the company’s mining activity in the area, incurring violations due to land erosion and discharge of oily waters into the Colorado River.
The city of satellites. In 2023, the SpaceX facilities were too small for the dimensions that the Starlink project was reaching, so Elon Musk decided build a new factory of more than 46,000 square meters on the outskirts of Bastrop. Currently, the company is expanding the factory with another 65,000 square meters.
Bastrop residents are already noticing the city’s “signs of Muskification,” with the creation of new jobs and higher tips in restaurants, but there is also unease among residents about the effect the newcomers may have on prices and concerns about the environmental impact of Musk’s companies.
They were few and the X arrived. After the acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk began to dismantle his headquarters in San Francisco and now plans to build the new X headquarters in this small city, as they published local media. “People called me and said, ‘Congratulations on this,'” he told Fortunee Becki Womble, president and CEO of the Bastrop Chamber of Commerce, when the arrival of X to the city was announced.
“At the speed at which they are going? Next year around this time, or in the middle of next year, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a four or five-story building there,” says a neighbor of X’s future Texas headquarters.
“Callout effect” for constructors. The flurry of activity that the small city is experiencing is having a “call effect” on new residential projects that see a business opportunity in Bastrop to meet the demand of the employees who will come to work in the new headquarters and factories of Musk’s business emporium.
This impetus is already noticeable in the price of housing which, according to data from Fortunerose to 372,500 for a house in 2023, compared to 350,000 in 2021. This will also lead to an increase in the population, which was 97,216 inhabitants throughout the county in 2020, and is expected to double by 2050 “The taxes on this park have gone up a lot. The houses have gone up a lot. It’s just ridiculous,” said the woman. owner of a caravan park near the Starlink factory where the builders who are expanding the factory stay.
No sign of Elon Musk. What the residents of Bastrop agree on is that Elon Musk is not seen in the city, nor is he expected to take up residence there in the near future. Even more so when the millionaire has just changed his austere 35 m2 cubicle in Boca Chica for a complex of three mansions in Austin to spend more time with his children.
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Image | Flickr (UK Government)