Elon Musk's new Texas city has elected its first mayor.
Since 2019, as SpaceX’s rockets have grown bigger, the company has been slowly transforming a corner of Cameron County into a company town. As a result, the area around SpaceX’s rocket launch site, just down from the US-Mexico border, was declared Starbase City after a majority vote.
On Saturday (3 May), a local vote found 212 people agreed to creating the city of Starbase while only six voted against it. The city spans around 1.6 square miles (3.9 sq km) and will be run by a mayor and two commissioners in charge of planning and taxes, among other local decisions.
According to the Cameron County post, Bobby Peden has been elected as Starbase's first mayor, who will run the new city alongside elected Jordan Buss and Jenna Petrzelka,
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According per his LinkedIn page, Peden has been with SpaceX for over 12 years, most recently as VP of Texas Test & Launch. He has held a number of positions for the company, starting as a cryogenic systems engineer in 2014. Like Peden, the two commissioners also work for SpaceX, according to The Texas Tribune.
Peden’s background also includes internships at Ad Astra Rocket Company and a company called Virco. Before that, he went to Arkansas Tech as an Undergrad, and later earned a Master’s in engineering mechanics at UT Austin. The Tribune also reported that Peden lives in a home 'owned by the Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX.'
The new city covers about 1.6 sq miles (3.9 sq km) which was sparsely populated before SpaceX began buying land in the area in 2012. However, Starbase hasn't been received well by everyone, as some nearby residents have accused the company of harming the local environment and the growing influence of one private company over public life.
Company housing and SpaceX facilities have become increasingly available recently. There's also a road called Memes Street which the Tesla CEO introduced himself as well as a giant bust of the billionaire, which was recently vandalised. About 500 people are estimated to live nearby, however, only registered voters living within the proposed city limits were allowed to vote in the election. Most of them either work for SpaceX or have a family member who does.
SpaceX hasn’t shared much about its long-term plans for the new city, other than plans to maintain the local roads and utilities. Some locals mentioned hearing talks about linking the city to the nearby water system. That said, the company has also filed documents with the state outlining plans to spend millions on building a school, a power plant, a commercial centre, and even a sushi restaurant near Musk’s home.