Elon Musk is building his own Texas town 35 miles outside Austin along the Colorado River, The Wall Street Journal reports. Dubbed Snailbrook, the town may occupy as much as 6,000 acres that Musk is buying from longtime ranchers and Texas families.
Musk envisions the town as a sort of utopia that offers affordable housing for workers at his companies Tesla, The Boring Co., and SpaceX. Beginning last year, Boring employees could apply for rents starting at $800 a month for a two- or three-bedroom house, compared to a median rent of $2,200 a month in Bastrop County.
The planned town borders Boring and SpaceX facilities now under construction, and already has a few modular homes put up, as well as a pool, an outdoor sports area and a gym.
The name Snailbrook is a shout out to Boring’s mascot, so named for Musk’s exhortation to workers at the tunneling company to engineer machines that work “faster than a snail.”
Bastrop officials have already approved Snailbrook street names, including “Boring Boulevard,” “Waterjet Way” and “Cutterhead Crossing.”
Musk plans to live on a separate private compound nearby, according to sources familiar with his plans. The billionaire has lived in a friend’s mansion in Austin for most of the past two years.
Under Texas law, a town must have 201 residents in order to apply to incorporate, which must then be approved by a judge. Bastrop has yet to receive such an application from Musk or the four limited liability corporations that have been making the land purchases, a Bastrop County spokeswoman said.
Incorporating his own town would empower Musk to set his own regulations and expedite his vision for Snailbrook, people familiar with the plans told the Journal. The settlement would even have its own mayor.
Unlike California, where Tesla and Boring were previously headquartered, Texas does not have corporate income tax, nor income or capital-gains taxes on individuals.
Texas also has fewer zoning laws and environmental and labor requirements, along with largely unregulated land.
In December 2001, before moving his companies, Musk called California the land of “overregulation, overlitigation, overtaxation.”
Tesla’s manufacturing plant outside Austin, in Travis County, sits on 2,500 acres and is more than 10 million square feet, according to land records and Tesla’s website.
Adjacent to Snailbrook, Musk’s SpaceX is building a 500,000-square-foot facility, and across state road 1209, Boring is putting up a new warehouse.
Neither Musk nor Steve Davis, Boring president, responded to WSJ requests for comment. As well, Musk attorney Alex Spiro and Jared Birchell, who heads Musk’s family office, did not respond, either.