Musk's Starbase is Fracturing a Small Texas Town

The arrival of SpaceX has brought good business to Eddie Reyes and his family. Since the establishment of Starbase, Elon Musk's company town in south Texas, his charter boat business has picked up ‌as space fans flock to the area for a glimpse of launches. Reyes' nephew works at SpaceX as a welder, driving a Tesla Cybertruck.  But the same rockets Reyes sees lifting his family's fortunes are also shaking his mother's home. Shockwaves from launches are cracking the ceiling, ‌loosening window seals and sinking the foundation. She's among dozens of residents now suing Musk's company for damage.

While SpaceX's rapid expansion is bringing jobs, visitors and global attention, it is also fueling lawsuits, environmental concerns and a growing divide among the 1.4 million residents of the Rio Grande Valley. "This company is literally shaking the earth," said Tino Villarreal, city commissioner of Brownsville, a city of 185,000 people that borders Starbase. "By the amount of workforce it wants to produce, by the actual wavelengths that are shaking our soil."

Some local Rio Grande Valley residents initially welcomed SpaceX. Maria Pointer lived in the region for ​almost two decades when she sold her home to SpaceX in 2020 after meeting ​with Musk. "We were excited," she said. "I really felt, at the time, that we deserved the moon as the gas station to wherever all the Elons of the world wanted to go in interstellar space."  Over time, Pointer has become less optimistic, saying the town has become less friendly. In April, she went to Starfactory to film an interview with an Italian news crew, beneath a huge "X" near the entrance to the building, where her kitchen once stood. A security guard approached and instructed them to leave. "It was very military," she said.

Other residents of neighboring towns – Laguna ​Vista, Port Isabel and South Padre Island – claim the Starship launches are damaging their homes, according to a class-action ‌lawsuit filed in April against SpaceX.  One plaintiff, who declined to speak on the record at her attorney's direction, showed Reuters her Port Isabel home. Cabinets sit unevenly, doors no longer close, and chipboard covers warped flooring she said was damaged by mold after a ​shower pipe burst following a rocket launch. She estimates foundation repairs at about $100,000, more than half the home's value.  "They're wanting to get to Mars," she said. "But what about us that are here? I'm here now. And nobody is thinking about us."