Elon Musk wants control of a public beach. The state of Texas is preparing to give it to him.

From The Texas Newsroom:

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On the road to Boca Chica Beach sits a huge bronze sculpture of Elon Musk’s head.

The thing is nine feet tall and probably weighs half a ton. Alone on the side of State Highway 4 on the way out of Brownsville, it’s a herald with a clear message.

You are now entering Musk Country.

Drive a few more miles through the yucca and native brush and, suddenly, SpaceX’s Starbase looms ahead. Musk’s massive rocket production and testing complex dominates the land here on the Texas-Mexico border, its glass buildings dwarfing the tidal flats below.

Starship, the rocket meant to ferry humans to Mars, takes off from here. The last thing you see before you hit the Gulf is the rocket launch pad.

Boca Chica Beach is open to the public. At least, it is in theory. Every time SpaceX launches a rocket, the area must be cleared for safety reasons.

Launches at the site could be about to increase five-fold. And now, Musk wants the power to close the beach on his schedule. GOP legislators are behind him.

Local leaders and environmentalists stand in opposition. The right to access public beaches is enshrined in the Texas Constitution, they say, and should not be handed to Musk.

This fight marks the latest show of power in Texas from Musk, one of the wealthiest people in the world. As he continues to flex his power in Washington, DC, his influence is expanding more quietly here. Musk’s footprint is growing at his corporate complex in rural Central Texas. He plans a massive new park at the Tesla gigafactory near Austin. And his foundation plans to start its own education system, starting with a single Montessori-style school.

But first, Musk is coming for the beach. The battle for Boca Chica is set.

The city of Starbase

Since its arrival in Cameron County more than a decade ago, SpaceX has gobbled up land all along the highway. Many longtime locals have left the immediate area, lured away by offers to sell their homes or fleeing the chaos of living alongside an active rocket testing and launch site.

In their absence, SpaceX installed Airstreams and tiny homes for its rank-and-file workers and built sleek modern houses for its execs. There’s a school and health clinic and bar, open for SpaceX employees.

Musk himself has a home here, a modest ranch-style house in Boca Chica Village on Memes Street. You can’t view the home on Google Maps, and loitering too long outside will guarantee being tailed by a SpaceX staffer in a golf cart.

The Musk effect has even seeped its way into the feel of Brownsville, some 20 miles away. Space-themed murals adorn the historic buildings downtown. One featuring Musk’s mug proclaims in big letters, “Boca Chica to Mars.”

In every practical sense, SpaceX’s Starbase is already a company town. Next month, it could become official. On May 3, the roughly 500 people who live in the immediate area will vote on whether to make Starbase its own city. Three people are on the ballot to be the city’s new elected leaders. They all have links to SpaceX, according to LinkedIn profiles.

If the new city is approved, which is expected, Musk wants an additional prize: the beach.

Boca Chica is a bit of a wild place, buffeted by high winds and pummeled by strong waves. The beach has been popular with locals who have come here to fish or camp or just drive alongside the dunes dating back to its days as a resort in the 1920s.

It gets its name — which means “little mouth” in Spanish — from the Rio Grande, which spills into the Gulf at the end of the beach. Saddled right along the U.S.-Mexico border, the beach divides Playa Bagdad in Matamoros and South Padre Island, a Texas resort town popular with tourists. The nearby area was the site of the final land battle of the U.S. Civil War.

The beach is also important ecologically, as a stopping ground for migratory birds and home to rare native species.

Last fall, the federal government fined SpaceX nearly $150,000 for alleged environmental violations at the site.

In the shadow of SpaceX’s launch tower, which stands nearly 500 feet tall, large placards have been erected that remind visitors about the environmental significance of this place. “SENSITIVE WILDLIFE HABITAT,” the signs, stuck amid the dunes, seem to shout. “This is not a SpaceX viewing area.”

Right now, the county government has control over when to close the beach ahead of a launch. SpaceX wants this power to be shifted to the soon-to-be city of Starbase. The change would require a new law to be passed.

Enter Sen. Adam Hinojosa, R-Corpus Christi. His bill would let Starbase’s elected leaders close the beach anytime they want during the week, up until noon on Friday.

In a letter to state lawmakers, SpaceX’s Vice President Sheila McCorkle called the bill “a simple administrative change” that would “kickstart the world’s first private spaceport and bolster Texas’ commercial space industry.”

The county would retain control over beach access on the weekends.

“We’ve worked with Cameron County to ensure this balance,” McCorkle wrote.

Not so fast, says the county judge.

Eddie Treviño is generally supportive of SpaceX. The economic development pamphlet outside his office has a picture of SpaceX’s rocket launch pad on its cover with the tagline “taking business to new heights.” He said he is grateful the company has created jobs and invested billions in Cameron County, where nearly one in four people live in poverty.

But, when it comes to the Boca Chica Beach, Treviño puts his foot down.

“You’re talking about changing the current authority of Cameron County and handing it over to a city that, at this moment, is nonexistent,” he said during an interview in his office at the end of last month.

In Treviño’s view, the bill is a solution in search of a problem. The current system, he said, “has worked just fine.”

Treviño is OK with another bill that would make it a misdemeanor to trespass on the beach when it’s closed. He said, “You don’t want an individual camping themselves out in an attempt to impede, prohibit, or whatever, a launch.”

Streamline, modernize, legislate

Last week, Hinojosa argued for the SpaceX beach bill in front of the Texas Senate.

“The bill does not in any way increase the number of closures. It simply modernizes who manages them,” Hinojosa said.

He failed to mention that SpaceX has asked to increase the number of annual launches at the site from five to 25. The Federal Aviation Administration — currently reeling from cuts by Musk’s DOGE team — is reviewing the request.

Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, a McAllen Democrat who is not related to Adam Hinojosa, has represented the district next door for decades. He said he understands that the beach needs to be closed during a launch.

But during the debate on the bill in front of the full Texas Senate, he said the state is giving Musk special treatment.

“I just don’t want to take the authority away from the county and give it to a municipality that has yet to be created,” Hinojosa said.

Democratic Sen. Sarah Eckhardt pointed out that the state of Texas has repeatedly stripped local powers from the city of Austin, which she represents, over proposals like plastic bag bans and protections for LGBTQ people.

But now, Eckhardt said, it was going to hand control over a public beach to a private corporation.

“Why is it that we are singling out this particular city, this particular company town, for more control while all other municipalities across the state, we are curtailing their authority?” she asked.

Adam Hinojosa did not take the bait.

“All we’re doing is trying to streamline the process to make it more efficient,” he responded.

Eckhardt quipped back.

“And if you don’t like the way the commissioners court is voting,” she asked, “then you could just start your own city, right?”

Debate barely lasted half an hour. The vote was all but a foregone conclusion. The bill passed along party lines, with all Republicans for it and all Democrats against. It still must pass the Texas House before becoming law.

The Texas Newsroom has repeatedly reached out to Adam Hinojosa’s office for an interview about this bill — after its first debate in committee, after the county judge voiced his opposition and again once more. He did not respond.

SpaceX also did not reply to requests for comment.

A handshake and a court case

Jerry Patterson remembers well the deal he struck with Elon Musk.

It was over a decade ago, when Patterson was Texas land commissioner. Even then, Patterson said Musk wanted the discretion to close the beach at his will.

But Patterson reminded him, he told The Texas Newsroom in an interview last month, that every Texan must be able to access our state’s public beaches.

Voters had enshrined the right in the state Constitution just a few years prior and Patterson was one of the amendment’s most vocal supporters. Texas went further than many other states, guaranteeing public access to the entirety of the beach up until the vegetation line. The change came after homeowners along the Gulf Coast tried to block access to the beaches in front of their properties.

So, Patterson said he offered Musk a compromise. If SpaceX requested to close the beach for a launch and didn’t hear back promptly from the government, Musk could go ahead and do so, assuming the silence amounted to tacit approval.

“That was a deal we worked out. We shook hands on it,” Patterson said.

Then, in 2013, state lawmakers formalized the handshake deal by passing a new law that gave county officials the power to close the Boca Chica Beach for launches. Popular beachgoing days like Memorial and Labor Day, July 4 and a few other days are blocked off — barred from closure unless state officials sign off.

If Starbase becomes its own city now, Patterson said, its leaders won’t be “answering the beachgoers.”

“You really are putting that decision in the hands of SpaceX,” he said.

The 2013 law is now being challenged by local groups that say it is unconstitutional. The case is currently before the Texas Supreme Court.

At a pizza parlor in downtown Brownsville on an afternoon last month, board members from one of the organizations suing, Save RGV, contemplate the years they’ve spent fighting one of the richest people on the planet. They describe their struggle in almost Sisyphean terms.

Even if they win this one battle, said Bill Berg, he’s not sure about the potential outcome of the war.

“What ultimately will happen in my opinion, my sad opinion,” Berg lamented, “is that Musk will get the Constitution changed.”

This week, the Elon Musk sculpture near Starbase was vandalized. Someone stripped a large piece of the bronze coloring off the statue’s face and chin. It was the second time this year that a local piece of art featuring the SpaceX CEO was defaced.

It’s unclear whether any arrests have been made in either case.

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