What do you gift a billionaire who has everything? Maybe your own city.
Entities linked to Elon Musk and his companies are buying thousands of acres of land in Texas with the hope of starting a city where their employees can live and work, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Thursday.
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Those entities bought at least 3,500 acres near Austin and are working to incorporate a town called Snailbrook, an apparent reference to the mascot of Musk’s tunneling company, the Boring Company, according to the Journal.
The report cites county deeds and other land records, as well as city and county emails, internal company communications, state licensing records, and interviews with landowners and city and county officials.
Over the years, technology companies have offered numerous facilities on campus to recruit workers and sometimes encourage them to work longer hours. By building his own company city, Musk could take this approach even further.
According to the report, Musk wants employees at his companies Boring Co., Tesla and SpaceX — all of which have large production facilities near Austin — “to be able to live in new homes at below-market rents.” The Snailbrook effort also includes plans to build more than 100 homes, as well as neighborhood features such as a swimming pool and outdoor sports area.
Incorporating a city could also give Musk, who is known for feuding with state and federal regulators, more say in how things work.
Musk in 2020 announced that he would move Tesla headquarters and his personal residence from California to Texas, blaming frustrations with California’s coronavirus-related restrictions. Last year, Tesla opened a new Gigafactory in Austin. SpaceX and Boring Co. de Musk also have facilities in Texas, and Boring Co. reportedly been in talks with Austin about the possibility of building tunnels through the city, according to a February report by the Austin American Statesman.
Property records for Bastrop County, adjacent to Austin, show that Boring Co. owns 11 lots of land at an address near the Colorado River where mobile homes have been built in the last three years, according to records.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is to hold a meeting on plans for a wastewater treatment plant at the same site, which were submitted by a registered LLC to a Boring Co. executive, according to a public announcement of the meeting.
That same entity also owns several plots of nearby property, including commercial and residential building land and pasture and farmland, public records show. The Journal reported that Musk’s team discussed incorporating the city into Bastrop County. The county told the Journal that it has not received an application for incorporation, which requires a certain number of residents, from Musk or any of his entities.
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