Another one of billionaire Elon Musk's companies is scooping up real estate in Central Texas.
SpaceX, the rocket company based in Hawthorne, California, and founded by Musk, has taken ownership of nearly 47 acres in Bastrop County, about 20 miles southeast from where Tesla opened its new electric vehicle factory earlier this year in Austin. Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla and the world's wealthiest person, relocated Tesla's headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to the Austin site last year.
Musk also relocated the headquarters of his tunnel construction company, The Boring Co., to Pflugerville in Central Texas last year from California.
The SpaceX acreage on Farm-to-Market Road 1209 in Bastrop County was transferred from Gapped Bass LLC, a company affiliated with The Boring Co., according to a deed record from June 9.
SpaceX has not revealed what it intends to do with the land, but public documents show SpaceX plans to build an industrial building under code name Project Echo. The building on at least 29.5 acres at 816 Farm-to-Market Road 1209 in Bastrop is expected to be completed by March 2023, according to a notice of intent SpaceX filed with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that was approved June 6.
It’s unclear whether Project Echo is connected to the transfer of land from The Boring Co. affiliate to SpaceX. Both SpaceX and The Boring Co. did not respond to requests for comment.
SpaceX designs and builds most of its rockets and spacecraft at its headquarters in California, a few miles east of Los Angeles International Airport, but the private space exploration company Musk founded in 2002 has a substantial footprint in Texas. SpaceX tests its engines, vehicle structures and systems at a 4,000-acre rocket development facility in McGregor, which is outside of Waco and about 100 miles north of Austin.
SpaceX also has a launch and testing facility in south Texas near Brownsville in Boca Chica Beach, an unincorporated area along the Gulf of Mexico that Musk wants to incorporate as a city named Starbase. Starbase would be dedicated to building and testing for Starship vehicles, which are fully reusable launch vehicles.