By Martha Williams, US News Reporter
Elon Musk‘s Texas real estate empire is far more extensive than previously believed.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss confirmed his move from California to Texas in 2020.
However, it was not clear until now the staggering extent to which the richest man in the world has expanded in the Lone Star State.
Musk’s companies own more than 500 properties covering 6,000 acres in Texas. His expansive network of factories, tunnels, and launch pads spreads from the top to the bottom.
‘He’s going all in on Texas,’ Goran Calic, a strategy professor at McMaster University in Canada who spent years studying Musk’s management style, told the Houston Chronicle.
‘And the reason he’s doing it is because of control. Elon Musk has more control in Texas than he does anywhere else.’
The star of his Lone Star State takeover is Tesla’s 2,500-acre factory complex, located in Austin.
Since Musk opened Austin’s Giga Texas in 2022, the complex has ballooned to over ten million square feet of production space — and could double if plans for a wave of buildings move forward.
The factory cranks out Teslas — including Model Ys and the Cybertruck — which are shuttled through a tunnel beneath Texas.
Musk’s Boring Company — an infrastructure and tunnel construction services company found in 2016 — is headquartered in Bastrop, about 20 miles east of Austin.
The startup has carved out more than 350 acres for testing giant machines, and houses staff in a makeshift village called Snailbrook.
In 2023, residents living nearby the development said the building work was affecting livestock and accused crews of dumping untreated wastewater into the Colorado River.
Boring generally denied the allegations but was fined more than $9,000 and was required to make changes at the site, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Across the road is a 700,000-square-foot SpaceX facility — a Starlink factory — that turns out 70,000 satellite kits a week, with plans to double in size.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott moved the deal along earlier this year with a $17.3 million grant for a $280 million SpaceX expansion.
Musk has also commandeered more land further south near Brownsville.
The chief executive converted scrubland in the area to make way for Starbase, a de facto company town of 500 residents and thousands of workers.
Starbase is home to Starship — the tallest rocket ever built — and over one million square feet of land dedicated to manufacturing.
Musk is pushing to further expand the Starship launchpad and add housing, retail and a grocery store.
Even further south, near Corpus Christi in Nueces County, Musk has taken over even more of the state’s land.
Tesla is bringing a lithium refinery to Robstown, which is meant to supply battery-grade material for a million electric vehicles a year.
On top of all of these properties, Musk has leased facilities across the state.
Southwest of Waco in McGregor, SpaceX leased land to test rockets.
There are also plans in place for Tesla to lease a 1.03 million-square-foot building in Brookshire, west of Houston, for a battery manufacturing plant.
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