Inside Elon Musk’s government-subsidised free-trade Texas HQ

After fleeing from the Silicon Valley for political and commercial reasons, Elon Musk is building a university campus in the country of Texas – but its new neighbors have mixed views.

Half an hour east of Austin, after the airport, the clogged traffic begins in melting and opens the plains of the center of Texas, leaving the prosperous city.

Somewhere along the main highway consisting of two lanes, the left turn takes drivers below the farm road to the farm 1209. It seems unlikely to be a high -tech address, but this is exactly what Elon Musk becomes the richest man in the world and one of the closest President Donald Trump, hoping to become that.

The court files indicate that a large metal building has ended in the past few months, the new headquarters of X, its social media platform.

A short distance, a large logo of the boring company is dressed, which is the musk infrastructure company, on the side of another headquarters. And through FM 1209 is a fast -growing Spacex facility that you manufacture Starlink Internet Equipment online.

Like most sons of technology, Musk has long made Silicon Valley his home and headquarters. Once it is accustomed to Democrats, its transition to Texas is part of the direction of the largest technology world and it seems that it also reflects his converted ideological views.

Here the land is (relatively) for workers in the field of skilled technology from the nearby Austin, and local laws are favorable to development.

Of course, there are also specific political angles for this step.

In July 2024, Musk said he left California after the state approved a law prohibiting teachers to apply rules on notifying families when students change students.

Musk has The daughter of the transgender He spoke against what he calls “the virus of the mind” – He describes it in the interviews as a divisive identity policy-as well as ideas of anti-marathmia and combating speech.

Thus, musk raised sticks and went to Texas, a Republican stronghold and the fastest growth in the United States.

In addition to the group of buildings near Bastrop in central Texas, he built a Spacex facility in Cameron County, on the southern end of Texas near the border with Mexico. Spacex staff there is a petition to create a new city called Starbase. The procedure will go to voting in May.

The locals in Pastep have mixed feelings about development.

“It is almost like we have a separate personality,” says Silvia Carillo, director of the city of Pastep, with a population of more than 12,000. The residents are happy that their children and grandchildren will get jobs in the area.

“On the other hand, you can feel that we are mired at a third party and that development will quickly organize our region,” she says.

Although the development of musk is technically located outside the city’s borders, it is close enough to grant Texas’s laws to develop the government. Mrs. Carillo stresses that musk buildings are just one example of many developments that appear in a prosperous area.

“He has faced a violent reaction, not completely from his creation,” she says.

“But now that it has become here and the things are changing quickly, it is the issue of managing” issues such as home, land and environment prices, “she says.

The musk compound is still somewhat naked. Hyperloop Plaza called Gradlooop is located in the middle of the company’s buildings, and is home to the company’s owned bodiga, which is a bar, cafe, hairdresser and gift store.

In the afternoon on Sunday, a video game console sat unavailable in front of a sofa near the company’s shirts show, while a few children were going back and forth to a court abroad.

The developments in Bastrop are directly proportional to the pace of activity across the center of Texas, where the cranes always waved over the Austin horizon and the housing market is a permanent topic of conversation.

Judy Ins, a volunteer guide at the Pastep Museum and the Visitor Center, says the area has passed with the comrades of various industry and the bust of the years over the years, including mining wood and coal.

During World War II, tens of thousands of soldiers – about 10,000 German war prisoners – flowed to Swift camp, an American army facility in the north of the city.

“Perhaps this has had an effect more than Elon Musk,” Mrs. Ensew notes.

The opinions of colleagues are mixed, at the very least, and it cannot be separated not only from his policy but also opinions on economic development, while it is often a rural field.

Judah Ross, a local real estate agent, says development has superconducting population growth that started as a result of the Ustan mutation and its acceleration during the roaming epidemic.

“I will always be biased because I want to grow,” says Ross. “But I love her here and I want to be part of it.

He says: “If there is nothing else, what is good is the amount of jobs that this brings.” “Last year, I sold to people working in Poring and Spacex.”

Alfonso Lopez, Texas, who returned to the state after working in technology in Seattle, says he initially chose that Pastep considers to be a quick formation in buying the house and moving forward.

Instead, it soon became fond of the city, its mixture of local companies and friendly people, and wants to stay.

Mr. Lopez is not a great admirer for musk and he criticizes some of his administrative and politics practices, but he admires the technology that his companies built and is happy to live nearby as long as companies are good neighbors.

He says: “As long as they do not destroy my water or dig a tunnel under my house and create a laundry, this is not bad.” “I will come here and watch a game.”

His fears about water more than theory. Last year, the boring company was fined 11,876 dollars (8,950 pounds) by the Texas Environmental Quality Committee after it was cited violations of water pollution.

The boring company initially planned to empty wastewater in the nearby Colorado River, but after local pressure, a deal to send sludge to the sewage treatment plant in Pastrop.

Water issues appear to have been late in building homes, which can include more than 100 houses for Musk employees. However, the planned development of homes has failed so far. Currently, the extent of living of living places is a handful of temporary trailers behind the Bodiga building, surrounded by a wall, delegations from Texas, and some chewing horses. Mrs. Carillo, the city director, says that any large -scale house building is at least at least a year.

In November, Spacex applied for a free trade zone, which would allow them to transfer final materials and products inside and outside the Bastrop factory without being subject to a tariff – one of Donald Trump’s signature policies.

It is a common practice for manufacturers, and there are hundreds of similar areas throughout the country.

Local officials of Texas acknowledged the proposal, saying that it will enhance the local economy, despite its cost of boycotting an estimated $ 45,000 (34,800 pounds) of revenues this year.

The company also gets an injection of $ 17.3 million (13.4 million pounds) from the Texas government to develop the site, a grant that officials say it is expected to create more than 400 jobs and 280 million dollars in investing capital in Bastrop.

A few locals wanted to criticize musk directly when standing face to face with a visiting correspondent. But it is a different story on the Internet, where more clear feelings shine.

“They will destroy everything soon,” a resident has been published in a local forum online. “Nothing is good with him.”

BBC called Spacex, boring company and X to comment.

Mrs. Carillo, the city’s director, says that she has not increased much personal anger by the local population paid by Musk activities in Washington.

But to protect Bastrop, as the city says, the city has recently enacted laws that limit the density of housing and provide public parks – measures that they will maintain the “historical nature” in the city center well preserved while allowing the growth of suburbs.

She says that Bastrop is a conservative Republican place.

“Its national purposes are not really recorded,” she says. “His companies were good citizens of companies, and we hope that you can stay this way.”