Luis Garza and his wife, Mireida Guerrero and their two children from Monterrey, Mexico pose for a picture in front of SpaceX’s Starbase on Friday, July 1, 2022. For years, Elon Musk has touted SpaceX’s compound near Boca Chica Beach as the ‘Gateway to Mars’. His desire to rebrand the area as “Starbase” is gaining traction among local politicians.
Kin Man Hui, San Antonio Express-News / Staff photographer
Elon Musk has been pushing for years to rename the area surrounding SpaceX’s South Texas facility to Starbase. Musk’s constant misidentification of the region has now triggered backlash from locals who want the Rio Grande Valley to be properly represented.
Starbase is a rocket facility in Cameron County outside of Brownsville. It is located off Highway 4 and includes the small town of Boca Chica, which was previously known as Kopernik Shores.
As Starbase, Texas is not a real city, many locals in the area are demanding that their area be properly represented.
“Where exactly is ‘Starbase, TX’? Is he renaming Boca Chica or is he just buying some land and creating an unincorporated place?” wrote ProfSaintBernard on Reddit.
“‘Startbase TX’ doesn’t exists.. he is not moving anything, he may change a mailing address and that’s it,” Reddit user FTR_1077 wrote.
Other users banded together to fight against the notion of Musk moving the company to the RGV to prevent gentrification in a low-cost city.
“It ain’t called Starbase, it’s called Boca Chica… Valley needs to band together, or these rich tech tycoons will come in and destroy environmental ecosystems, heritage, and ultimately pricing people out of their homes,” AceKnight21 said. “Wake up 956.”
While many may not be okay with the change in region name, Musk is getting closer to making Starbase, TX a reality. The Cameron County Spaceport Development Corporation passed a resolution in January requesting a U.S. Postal Service mailing name designation for Starbase. If approved by the USPS, Starbase would function almost like a municipality.
MySA has reached out to SpaceX for additional details on the headquarters relocation.
Victoria Lopez is a Hill Country Trending Reporter at MySA. She graduated from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2020 with a BA in Mass Communications – Public Relations. Before joining the team in November 2023, she worked as a digital reporter and producers in broadcast journalism. In her free time, Victoria enjoys spending time with friends and family as well as baking for any and every occasion!
