Elon Musk’s Texas land grab is bigger than anyone realized.
His companies own more than 500 properties covering 6,000 acres across the state, from Cybertruck assembly lines outside of Austin to rocket launch pads at the Mexican border, an analysis by the Houston Chronicle found.
Property records from all 254 Texas counties tracked holdings tied to Tesla, SpaceX, the Boring Company and 11 other Musk entities, which often hide behind banal names like “Colorado River Project” or “Dogleg Park.”
The crown jewel is Giga Texas, Tesla’s 2,500-acre Austin factory complex that has ballooned to more than 10 million square feet of production space and could double if filings for another wave of buildings move forward. The plant cranks out Model Ys and the Cybertruck, which are shuttled through a Boring Co. tunnel beneath Texas 130 to staging areas. The main facility is nearly three quarters of a mile long.
About 20 miles east, in Bastrop, Musk’s tunneling startup has carved out more than 350 acres for testing giant boring machines and housing staff in a makeshift village called Snailbrook. Across the road, SpaceX runs a 700,000-square-foot Starlink factory that turns out 70,000 satellite kits a week, with plans to double in size. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sweetened the deal earlier this year with a $17.3 million grant tied to a $280 million SpaceX expansion.
Farther south, SpaceX has converted scrubland near Brownsville into “Starbase,” a de facto company town of nearly 500 residents and thousands of workers. The site hosts Starship, the tallest rocket ever built, along with more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing. The company is pushing to expand its launchpad and add housing, retail and a grocery store.
Tesla’s reach extends beyond Austin and Brownsville. Near Corpus Christi, the automaker is bringing a lithium refinery online in Robstown, meant to supply battery-grade material for 1 million EVs a year. Outside Dallas, Tesla Energy is building a 125-megawatt battery storage plant in Royse City, one of the largest in ERCOT’s pipeline.
Besides these properties, Musk’s companies have leased facilities around the state. Southwest of Waco in McGregor, SpaceX leased land to test rockets. Plans are in place for Tesla to lease a 1.03 million-square-foot building in Brookshire, west of Houston, for a battery manufacturing plant.
Musk has made no secret of why he’s gone “all in” on Texas: lighter regulation, lower taxes and control.
“Elon Musk has more control in Texas than he does anywhere else,” said Goran Calic, a McMaster University professor who studies Musk’s management style.
— Eric Weilbacher
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