Nothing surprises when it comes to Elon Musk. Or almost. After conquering the space exploration market, the billionaire returns to Earth with a crazy new project: he has decided to create his own city. baptized Snailbrook in reference to the slowness of the machines of his tunnel construction company located a few kilometers away, it will be built on at least 3,500 hectares freshly acquired by the entrepreneur near Austin, Texas. The vision: a kind of Texas utopia along the Colorado River, where employees of its companies Boring, Tesla and SpaceX could live well below market prices. The site already includes a group of modular houses, a swimming pool, an outdoor sports area and a gym according to the wall street journalwho revealed the information.
The project is already causing controversy
The city should also become the main residence of the most eccentric boss of the United States, who would then live on his own kingdom. A mayor should nevertheless be democratically elected. In order to see the light of day, Snailbrook will have to be absorbed by Bastrop County, 35 kilometers from Austin, and thus become a municipality with its own regulations. An application has already been filed for the construction of 110 additional houses on the land, the newspaper reports. According to Texas law, a town must have at least 201 inhabitants to be recognized by the authorities.
No application has yet been sent for this city which, if it sees the light of day, should be four times the size of Central Park. The county’s former engineering director had nevertheless complained, according to the wall street journalin an email sent to the local commissioner before her resignation, of insistent and repeated requests from Elon Musk’s companies to “expedite and approve incomplete and non-compliant permit applications” with territory regulations.
The land is located near a new SpaceX warehouse, currently under construction in Bastrop County. Tesla’s giant construction plant, known as “Giga Texas” and set on 2,500 acres, is also located in neighboring Travis County on the outskirts of regional capital Austin. Tests would also be carried out in this area, according to neighbors, by Elon Musk’s tunnel construction company The Boring company, which questions local actors about the consequences for groundwater and wells in the region.
Creation of a mini tax haven
This project follows a frustration expressed on several occasions by the boss of Twitter, who until two years ago had installed the headquarters of his companies in California (before moving them to Texas). A state that has become the country of “overregulation, excessive litigation, overtaxation”, he declared in December 2021.
In comparison, “regulations in Texas regarding the environment or labor employment are more relaxed, and the state still owns large tracts of regulated land”, not to mention the absence of corporate income tax, underlines the American newspaper.