Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

[jhu72]

Would be a great time to buy, rather than hoping a US company fails.

Not hoping for a failure. Just pointing out the risks as Elmo is heavily leveraged in the Twitter deal with TSLA stock. I think the market is reflecting this anxiety.

I'm a shareholder. But my investment is in TSLA not Twitter

I was a shareholder from 2014 to mid 2022. Made a solid chunk of change. I don't see how Tesla stays a leader in the field. Not with everyone else ramping up production with better quality control and some models of equal or better specs. And with their issues in delivering the gimmicky cybertruck and over-promising and underdelivering various self-driving aspects. I personally don't see it as a long term stock worth holding anymore.

... they won't and Elmo knows it. They have played out the string with government rebates coming to an end, up against competition which will still have rebates because they entered the market later. Elmo thought the US government was just in business to make him rich when they are in business to help build an industry. IMO this explains some of Elmo's strange behavior of late. Elmo is not an automobile manufacturer and never wanted to be. It's boring manufacturing sh*t for the most part, not sexy at all. Lots of people can do that job.

[jhu72]

Speaking of Tesla problems.

[youthathletics]

Speaking of Tesla problems.

Does that author also post on Fanlax....such divisiveness.

Teslas are also priced much higher than all their competitors. Markets are also forcing their hand to compete at the medium EV price; that is a good thing. This is also not uncommon for major businesses to slam/push sales in Q4, which is why they are likely increasing the tax credit, instead of buyers waiting for Q1 tax credits. It's really not that complicated.

Tesla appears to be doing great in Norway....may be a bit of exaggeration in there post (don't know for sure), but good news nonetheless: https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/160599 ... LXtECDsfQw

[jhu72]

Speaking of Tesla problems.

Does that author also post on Fanlax....such divisiveness.

Teslas are also priced much higher than all their competitors. Markets are also forcing their hand to compete at the medium EV price; that is a good thing. This is also not uncommon for major businesses to slam/push sales in Q4, which is why they are likely increasing the tax credit, instead of buyers waiting for Q1 tax credits. It's really not that complicated.

Tesla appears to be doing great in Norway....may be a bit of exaggeration in there post (don't know for sure), but good news nonetheless: https://twitter.com/Tesla/status/160599 ... LXtECDsfQw

... my read of the article is Tesla is the only EV seller in the US who is offering year end discounts and yes it is not unusual except for the past 3 years when auto manufacturers have avoided doing it. Tesla is out their all by themselves according to the business article (and others). This has been a problem since before twitter fiasco. Time will tell.

[cradleandshoot]

Elon read your criticism of him and his companies and is deeply troubled by your observations...NOT...

[jhu72]

Haven't seen "Glass Onion" as yet, Ben Shapiro recommends it - highly.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Haven't seen "Glass Onion" as yet, Ben Shapiro recommends it - highly.

It was entertaining. Not as good as the first film but entertaining. Slow start. Filmed during COVID-19.

[a fan]

Where's good Ol' Petey and his 1st Amendment love for ol Elon now?


Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Replying to
@ggreenwald
and
@mtaibbi
Most people don’t appreciate the significance of the point Matt was making:

*Every* social media company is engaged in heavy censorship, with significant involvement of and, at times, explicit direction of the government.

Google frequently makes links disappear, for example.

How many times did I try, in vain, to explain this to our hero Petey? Steak dinner he'll pretend like he knew this all along when he reads it.

1%ers run everything. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss----the owner of the press does as they please. That's it. End of story. Musk is NOW admitting what he pretended that he didn't get before....he was playing right wing America, just like everyone else.


And if you're not getting the memo, fellas? This applies to ALL MEDIA, for as long as Gutenberg showed up with the printing press. Wake up if you don't get this. This. is. not. new. Musk buying twitter changes NOTHING.

I ADORE that Greenwald is acting like this sh*t didn't happen at every publication has has ever worked for....it's just SO cute that he's holding himself out as the one journalist with clean hands.

Yeah....no, Glenn. Sorry mate. You're part of the same hypocrisy.

[Farfromgeneva]

Have observed Musk twisting the truth (lying IMO) regarding his suits around $420 funding secured and now about production capacity at Tesla among others related topics. I suspect he has no choice but to contribute more equity to
tesla as loans have covenants tied to cash flow coverage and debt/equity. We know that other investors have marked down the value of their investments by 50%+ so if the purchase was $44Bn minus $13Bn in debt the intial acquisition MVE (market value of equity would’ve been approx $31bn or call it .3. It’s rising fast as a ratio and there’s no net worth and negative cash flow coverage so this isn’t just about “expensive debt” I suspect but rather meaningful potential constraints imposed by lenders coming in 1-3 quarters. Elon has never had to have a creditor dictate anything in how he runs a business. He’s been all equity selling his coolness to Cathy wood and return chasers who buy into his cult of personality. This could get real interesting real fast.

Elon Musk Explores Raising Up to $3 Billion to Help Pay Off Twitter Debt

Billionaire has held talks with investors about selling new Twitter shares

By Berber JinFollow
and Alexander SaeedyFollow
Updated Jan. 25, 2023 5:28 pm ET

Elon Musk’s team has held talks with investors about raising up to $3 billion to repay some of the $13 billion in debt tacked onto Twitter Inc. as part of his buyout of the company, people familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Musk’s team has said to people familiar with the finances of the company that an equity raise, if successful, could be used to pay down an unsecured portion of the debt that carries the highest interest rate within the $13 billion Twitter loan package, people familiar with the matter said.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Newsletter Sign-up

Technology

Get email notifications about major news in the technology sector.

Paying off the debt would provide welcome financial relief to Twitter, which has struggled to keep advertisers on the platform. In November, Mr. Musk said Twitter had suffered “a massive drop in revenue” and was losing over $4 million a day. He also said that month that bankruptcy was a possibility for the company, although Mr. Musk later shared more upbeat prospects for the company, saying he expects Twitter to be roughly cash-flow break-even in 2023 as he has slashed some 6,000 jobs.

The state of the fundraising talks couldn’t be learned. In mid-December, Mr. Musk’s team reached out to new and existing backers about raising new equity capital at the original Twitter takeover price.

Mr. Musk’s advisers had hoped to reach a deal to raise cash at the initial takeover price by the end of 2022, according to an email sent to prospective investors at the time. However, some prospective backers said they balked at the terms, given concerns about Twitter’s financial performance. The Musk team didn’t specify a funding amount or purpose for the fundraise in the email.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Fidelity, one of the co-investors that backed Mr. Musk’s takeover of Twitter, wrote down its stake in Twitter by 56% in November, public filings show, suggesting Mr. Musk would face an uphill battle raising funds at the original valuation from outside investors. The banks holding the $13 billion in debt that backed his takeover of the company haven’t yet received any formal notice of any repayments, people familiar with the matter said.

Layoffs Across the Tech Industry


Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Representatives for Mr. Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Twitter’s unsecured bridge loans, which total $3 billion, are the most expensive portion of the $13 billion debt package Mr. Musk incurred as part of his $44 billion acquisition of the social-media company. They carry an interest rate of 10% plus the secured overnight financing rate, a benchmark interest rate that has shot up in recent months and currently sits at 4.3%.

With every quarter that passes without Twitter refinancing the debt, the interest rate goes up by an additional 0.50 percentage point, according to regulatory filings. Twitter’s first quarterly interest payment is due at the end of the month, the filings show.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Twitter’s annual interest burden has increased by over $100 million since he announced the takeover deal last April, as the overnight rate has increased. At the time of the announcement, the overnight rate was 0.3%.


Elon Musk has said that Twitter is losing over $4 million a day.Photo: Marlena Sloss/Bloomberg News
Twitter’s total interest expense has been estimated to be roughly $1.25 billion a year, according to a December analysis by Jeffrey Davies, a former credit analyst and founder of data provider Enersection LLC. By that estimate, Twitter is incurring roughly $3.4 million every day in interest-payment obligations.

On Dec. 13, Mr. Musk tweeted “beware of debt in turbulent macroeconomic conditions, especially when Fed keeps raising rates.”

Repaying the unsecured bridge loans would leave Twitter with a debt burden that has much more manageable interest rates. Twitter’s $6.5 billion in term loans and $3 billion in secured bridge loans carry an annual interest burden of 4.75% and 6.75%, respectively, plus the overnight rate, according to public filings.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

A potential deal would also provide a degree of relief for the banks that backed Mr. Musk’s takeover of the social-media company and that intended to sell the debt to third-party investors but changed course after deteriorating market conditions sank Wall Street’s appetite for exposure to risky bonds and loans.

The $13 billion of Twitter debt on bank balance sheets, one of the biggest “hung deals” of all time, has helped contribute to a drag in the number of mergers and acquisitions as banks’ firepower to back deals is tied up.

Morgan Stanley, the lead bank on Twitter’s debt deal, has approximately $807 million in unsecured bridge debt on its balance sheet, while Bank of America Corp., Barclays PLC and MUFG Bank Ltd. each have approximately $623 million of exposure, according to public documents and calculations by The Wall Street Journal.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Each of the four banks have more than $2 billion in other Twitter debt commitments on their balance sheets separate from the unsecured bridge facility, including term loans and other secured debt, the documents show.

Representatives of those banks declined to comment.

Elon Musk’s Tesla Tweets Trial: What to Know
Elon Musk’s Tesla Tweets Trial: What to Know
Elon Musk’s Tesla Tweets Trial: What to Know
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is set to testify in a federal trial over tweets from 2018 in which he floated the possibility of taking the company private. WSJ’s Rebecca Elliott explains what to know about the trial. Illustration: Adele Morgan
Corrie Driebusch, Alexa Corse and Laura Cooper contributed to this article.

Write to Berber Jin at [email protected] and Alexander Saeedy at [email protected]

Elon Musk at Twitter

Key coverage of Elon Musk's moves at the social-media company, selected by editors

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

[Seacoaster(1)]

Elon feeling the Zeitgeist, again:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... rt-racist/

"Twitter and Tesla chief Elon Musk defended Scott Adams, the under-fire creator of “Dilbert,” in a series of tweets Sunday, blasting media organizations for dropping his comic strip after Adams said that White people should “get the hell away from Black people.”

Replying to tweets about the controversy, Musk said it is actually the media that is “racist against whites & Asians.” He offered no criticism of Adams’s comments, in which the cartoonist called Black people a “hate group” and said, “I don’t want to have anything to do with them.”

Musk previously tweeted, then later deleted, a reply to Adams’s tweet about media outlets pulling his comic strip, in which Musk asked, “What exactly are they complaining about?”

The billionaire’s comments continue a pattern of Musk expressing more concern about the “free speech” of people who make racist or antisemitic comments than about the comments themselves. Musk’s views on race have been the subject of scrutiny both at Twitter, where he has reinstated far-right accounts, including those of neo-Nazis and others previously banned for hate speech, and at Tesla, which has been the subject of multiple lawsuits alleging a culture of rampant racism and sexual harassment in the workplace.

In the wake of Musk’s latest tweets Sunday, the president of the civil rights group Color of Change told The Washington Post that he is reiterating his call for advertisers to boycott Twitter.

Musk did not reply to an email Sunday requesting comment.

YouTube show

Newspapers around the country, including The Washington Post, have dropped Adams’s “Dilbert” strip in recent days in the wake of an episode of his YouTube show that aired Wednesday. In that video, Adams expressed outrage at a Rasmussen poll that found 26 percent of Black Americans disagreed with the statement “It’s okay to be white,” compared with 12 percent of the general population. Another 21 percent of Black respondents said they were “not sure” about the statement.

The controversy over the statement may be explained in part by the fact that it originated as part of an online trolling campaign by the alt-right and was subsequently embraced by white supremacists, according to the Anti-Defamation League. But Adams suggested it proves that Black Americans hate Whites.

“If nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with White people … that’s a hate group,” Adams said. “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people … because there is no fixing this.”

In further tweets Sunday, Musk agreed with a tweet that said “Adams’ comments weren’t good” but there’s “an element of truth” to them, and suggested in a reply that media organizations promote a “false narrative” by giving more coverage to unarmed Black victims of police violence than they do to unarmed White victims of police violence.

Asked about his remarks and the cancellation of his comic strip, Adams told The Post in a text message: “Lots of people are angry, but I haven’t seen any disagreement yet, at least not from anyone who saw the context. Some questioned the poll data. That’s fair.”

Advertising fallout

Since taking over Twitter in October, Musk has softened its policies against hate speech and scaled back the company’s content moderation efforts at a time of drastic cutbacks in its workforce. His first days as owner saw a spike in virulently racist slurs on Twitter, after which Musk met with leaders of civil rights groups in a bid to assuage their concerns.

In that November meeting, held via Zoom, Musk assured leaders from groups, including the NAACP and Color of Change, that he wouldn’t reinstate banned Twitter accounts until he had established a clear process for doing so. Representatives from civil rights groups would be included on a content moderation council that he would form to advise Twitter on its policies, he added.

But Musk never formed the content moderation council, and he began reinstating numerous banned accounts weeks later, including that of former president Donald Trump, after polling his own Twitter followers on their opinion.

Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, was one of the civil rights leaders who met with Musk in November. He said in a phone interview Sunday that he thinks Musk “was lying all the way through the meeting.”

Color of Change was among the civil rights groups that called for an advertiser boycott of Twitter later that month. A Post analysis found in late November that more than a third of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers had stopped or paused advertising on the site in the previous two weeks.

Robinson said Sunday that the boycott is still active, even though some companies that initially signed on to it have since “snuck back” onto the platform. Robinson reiterated his call for advertisers to pull their spending from the company in light of Musk’s latest remarks.

“We think that companies that continue to advertise on [Twitter] are making a choice” about what they’re willing to tolerate, Robinson said. “And we will continue to let the public understand and know about that choice.”

Musk has long decried what he calls a “woke mind virus.” The term “woke” originated among Black activists to mean awareness of, and vigilance against, the White racism that they believed pervades American society. In recent years. it has been adopted by leaders on the right as a pejorative, akin to “politically correct,” suggesting oversensitivity to racism, sexism, transphobia and other forms of bigotry.

In November, Musk posted a tweet in which he appeared to mock T-shirts, created years earlier by a group of Black Twitter employees, that he said stemmed from the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Mo., after the fatal shooting by police of a Black teen, Michael Brown."

[jhu72]

... Musk is such a dick. He fires folks at the end of the week, 200+, and then sends them a message “Hope You Have A Good Sunday. First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life”.

[Farfromgeneva]

... Musk is such a dick. He fires folks at the end of the week, 200+, and then sends them a message “Hope You Have A Good Sunday. First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life”.

Should’ve seen Cathy Wood (a total Dip**it IMO) talking about the coming creating productive but was asked twice about jobs lost and ignored it while then buttering Musks a** since she bought into the acq and is unlikely to properly mark to market any holding that isn’t liquid and public ever.

[Farfromgeneva]

If this don’t work there’s always Guyana!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk- ... 13?mod=mhp

Elon Musk Is Planning a Texas Utopia—His Own Town

The entrepreneur is laying plans for a new community outside Austin next to Boring and SpaceX facilities, dubbed Snailbrook

By Kirsten GrindFollow
, Rebecca ElliottFollow
, Ted MannFollow
and Julie BykowiczFollow
| Photographs by Sergio Flores for The Wall Street Journal
Updated March 9, 2023 10:22 am ET
AUSTIN, Texas—Elon Musk is planning to build his own town on part of thousands of acres of newly purchased pasture and farmland outside the Texas capital, according to deeds and other land records and people familiar with the project.

Executives at the Boring Co., Mr. Musk’s tunnel operation, have discussed and researched incorporating the town in Bastrop County, about 35 miles from Austin, which would allow Mr. Musk to set some regulations in his own municipality and expedite his plans, according to people familiar with Mr. Musk’s projects.

They say Mr. Musk and his top executives want his Austin-area employees, including workers at Boring, electric-car maker Tesla Inc. TSLA -4.99% and space and exploration company SpaceX, to be able to live in new homes with below-market rents.


Land tied to Elon Musk

Gigafactory

Texas

Areas of

detail

Warehouses for the Boring Co. and SpaceX

Note: Property boundaries are approximate. Satellite imagery for Travis County as of January 2022. Bastrop County is a composite of imagery from January 2022 and November 2022.

Source: Maxar and Google Earth (satellite imagery); Travis and Bastrop Central Appraisal Districts (property boundaries)
Andrew Mollica / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The planned town is adjacent to Boring and SpaceX facilities now under construction. The site already includes a group of modular homes, a pool, an outdoor sports area and a gym, according to Facebook photos and people familiar with the town. Signs hanging from poles read “welcome, snailbrook, tx, est. 2021.”

Newsletter Sign-up

Technology

A weekly digest of tech reviews, headlines, columns and your questions answered by WSJ's Personal Tech gurus.

Snailbrook is a reference to Boring’s mascot. When Mr. Musk started the tunneling venture, he challenged employees to build boring machines that move “faster than a snail.”

Some Boring employees, including Steve Davis, the company’s president and a top lieutenant to Mr. Musk, have at times described even bigger plans, including creating an entire city, according to some of those people and text messages viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

During an all-hands meeting of Boring employees last year, Mr. Davis said they would have to hold an election for mayor, according to text messages and people familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Musk, his former girlfriend, who is the singer Grimes, Kanye West and Mr. West’s architectural designer discussed several times last year what a Musk town might look like, according to people familiar with the discussions. Those talks included broad ideas and some visual mock-ups, according to one of the people, but haven’t resulted in concrete plans.



The Snailbrook neighborhood, top, near a Boring Co. construction site. Documents filed in the Bastrop County Commissioners Court in January, above, show plans for 110 more homes near the land where Snailbrook is located.
Representatives for Mr. West, who goes by Ye, and Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Under Texas law, a town needs at least 201 residents before it can apply to incorporate, then approval from a county judge. Bastrop County hasn’t received an application from Mr. Musk or any of his entities, a spokeswoman said.

Chap Ambrose, a computer programmer who lives on a hilltop overlooking the new Boring and SpaceX facilities, said he believes “they want it to be secret. They want to do things before anyone knows really what’s happening.”

Mr. Ambrose has been seeking information from Boring and the county about the company’s research and testing of its tunneling machines and how that might affect groundwater and wells in the area.

He has sent drones over the area seeking clues to other structures Boring and SpaceX are building and what they plan to produce in their factories. Drone footage and YouTube videos he posted show the construction of tunnels between the Boring and SpaceX parcels that run beneath a public road.

Messrs. Musk and Davis didn’t respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Mr. Musk, Alex Spiro, and a top adviser who heads his family office, Jared Birchall, also didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Over the past three years, entities tied to Mr. Musk’s companies or executives have purchased at least 3,500 acres in the Austin area, collectively about four times the size of New York’s Central Park, according to county deeds and other land records. The Journal also obtained city and county emails through public-records requests, reviewed internal company communications and state licensing records, and interviewed land owners and city and county officials.


Elon Musk addressed guests at the grand opening of Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas in April 2022.Photo: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Press
Some local real-estate and land officials said they have been told by people close to Mr. Musk that the billionaire owns even more land in the area—as much as 6,000 acres.

When Mr. Musk left his longtime home of California more than two years ago, he said he had lost patience with rules and regulations in that state, where Tesla and Boring were then headquartered before moving to Texas. California is the land of “overregulation, overlitigation, overtaxation,” he said in December 2021.

Texas has fewer zoning laws and environmental and labor requirements, and has vast swaths of loosely regulated land. Unlike California, it has no corporate income tax or income or capital-gains taxes on individuals.

Last month, Tesla said it was continuing to expand in California, too, and named an office in Palo Alto as its engineering headquarters. Tesla’s corporate headquarters remains in Texas.

The Texas land purchases have taken place through at least four limited liability companies. Those companies are tied to Mr. Musk’s businesses or their officers in county deed and land records and state business filings that list their names.

The plans include a project to build a private residential compound for Mr. Musk that potentially would be some distance from the planned town, according to people familiar with the plans.

Mr. Musk has been a chief driver of the plans, and the land purchases all have to be approved by him, said people familiar with the operation.

In many of the purchases tracked by the Journal, sellers have been required to sign nondisclosure agreements, according to people who have signed them. Local economic-development officials said they were asked to sign such agreements when they were told Boring was coming to town.


Construction at a SpaceX site in Bastrop County in February.
During a spring 2020 visit to the condo of Steve Adler, then mayor of Austin, Mr. Musk sought assurances from him and an official in Travis County, where Austin is located, that government bureaucracy wouldn’t stand in the way of his many projects, Mr. Adler said. “What he wanted from the city was speed,” said Mr. Adler, a Democrat who left office when his second term ended this January.

Soon after, Mr. Musk began building the Tesla manufacturing facility known as Giga Texas—more than 10 million square feet on roughly 2,500 acres in Travis County, outside Austin, according to land records and Tesla’s website.

In neighboring Bastrop County, about an hour southeast of Austin, SpaceX is building a 500,000-square-foot facility, and, across state road 1209, Boring is building a new warehouse.

Last June, Robert Pugh, then Bastrop County’s director of engineering, complained in an email to Clara Beckett, the county commissioner in charge of planning, that staffers had been “regularly hounded” by employees and contractors of Boring and Starlink, a SpaceX unit. They want the county to “expedite and approve permit applications that are incomplete and not in compliance” with the county’s regulations, Mr. Pugh wrote.

Mr. Pugh left his job that same month and didn’t respond to requests for comment. Ms. Beckett didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The planned town would sit in Bastrop County. An entity called Gapped Bass LLC, of which state records show Boring’s Mr. Davis serving as president, now owns more than 200 acres there, all purchased within the past two years. SpaceX has purchased about 60 more acres. The land was previously owned by longtime ranchers and other Texas families.

As of last year, Boring employees could apply for a home with rents starting at about $800 a month for a two- or three-bedroom, according to an advertisement for employees viewed by the Journal and people familiar with the plans. If an employee leaves or is fired, he or she would have to vacate the house within 30 days, those people said.

The median rent in Bastrop, Texas, is about $2,200 a month, according to real-estate listing company Zillow Group Inc.

Executives have discussed opening the houses to all employees of Mr. Musk’s companies.

Gapped Bass has filed paperwork with Bastrop County to build 110 more homes in the planned town, which it calls “Project Amazing.”

Bastrop County officials approved street names such as “Boring Boulevard,” “Waterjet Way” and “Cutterhead Crossing,” according to county meeting documents.

Boring plans to convert a home on the property into a Montessori school for as many as 15 students, according to correspondence between a Boring company official and a county government employee.

Adena Lewis, the county’s director of tourism and economic development, said she isn’t sure of Boring’s time frame for the development, but the region sorely needs new housing. “They’re very respectful of us,” she said. “But they’re in a hurry.”

Ms. Lewis said the county’s small size made it attractive to Mr. Musk’s companies. “I think it’s the ability to work with folks on a direct level, and not having tons of red tape,” she said.

Mr. Musk has long envisioned building a town, and a couple of years ago helped his brother, Kimbal Musk, refine an idea to build an off-the-grid community, according to people familiar with the plans. It couldn’t be determined where that idea stands. When the Journal reached out to a spokeswoman for Kimbal Musk, describing the project, including a purported name, she said he wasn’t aware of the project as described and didn’t respond to further requests for clarification.

Mr. Musk has been a proponent of affordable housing for employees. In 2018, during a public panel discussion with then-Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Mr. Musk talked about building housing for Tesla workers alongside the company’s huge complex outside Reno.

In 2021, Mr. Musk tweeted about creating “the city of Starbase, Texas,” in Boca Chica Village, where SpaceX has operations along the Gulf of Mexico. It isn’t clear whether the city has been incorporated. A spokeswoman for Cameron County, where Boca Chica Village is located, didn’t respond to requests for comment.


June 2021


November 2022

Site of Musk company developments in Bastrop County.

Maxar Technologies (2)

Mr. Musk has explored building a private compound on some of the newly acquired land in Bastrop County, according to people familiar with his plans. For some of the past two years, he has stayed at a friend’s mansion in Austin, the Journal has reported.

The status and location of the potential house couldn’t be determined. The people familiar with the plan say the town is a separate project.

Some locals have sold land to Mr. Musk’s companies. Others who own land in Bastrop and Travis counties said they have gotten few answers from Mr. Musk’s companies about their plans, and have said they won’t sell.

Some said they feel steamrolled by eager public officials who aren’t asking enough questions. “They’re just going as fast as they can,” said Mr. Ambrose, whose home overlooks the Boring site.

In 2013, when Mr. Ambrose bought his 10 acres of hilltop land, there were only about a dozen residences within a mile. Since the spring of 2021, Boring has erected several warehouses and dug at least two test tunnels, and SpaceX is constructing the largest building in the county.

“There’s no transparency,” said David Barrow, who runs Eden East Farm on Bastrop’s North Main Street, which supports his family’s two restaurants and a farmstand.


David Barrow, who runs a farm in Bastrop, is worried the new projects could threaten water quality.
Boring employees are among his regular customers, Mr. Barrow said, but he is worried the new projects could threaten the water quality of the Colorado River and the aquifers that supply the region’s wells.

Recently, Boring applied to state environmental authorities to discharge up to 140,000 gallons of industrial wastewater a day into the river.

“I would like to know what is actually being sprayed, what they’re actually building, and who is going to hold them accountable,” Mr. Barrow said, referring to plans to disperse some wastewater onto Boring land.

Ms. Lewis, the director of tourism and economic development, said she had no concerns that the company’s development would harm the river and surrounding farmland.

After being approached by some landowners, including Mr. Ambrose, Texas State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt requested a public environmental hearing set for this month.

“We’re going to need to have more of a conversation and be able to verify the assertions that these companies are making with regard to the discharge permit into the Colorado River,” Ms. Eckhardt said.

Instead of trying to force one of the world’s richest men out of town, Mr. Ambrose said, “we can make him be a good member of the community and be a good neighbor and follow the law. And that, to me, is worth the effort.”


New Boring Co. buildings have risen near pasture land in Bastrop County.
Jim Oberman, Elisa Cho and Micah Maidenberg contributed to this article.

Header Photo Illustration Credit: DAVE COLE/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; SOURCE PHOTOS: AFP/GETTY IMAGES, PICTOMETRY, SERGIO FLORES FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES, ISTOCK

Write to Kirsten Grind at [email protected], Rebecca Elliott at [email protected], Ted Mann at [email protected] and Julie Bykowicz at [email protected]

[PizzaSnake]

If this don’t work there’s always Guyana!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk- ... 13?mod=mhp

Elon Musk Is Planning a Texas Utopia—His Own Town

The entrepreneur is laying plans for a new community outside Austin next to Boring and SpaceX facilities, dubbed Snailbrook

By Kirsten GrindFollow
, Rebecca ElliottFollow
, Ted MannFollow
and Julie BykowiczFollow
| Photographs by Sergio Flores for The Wall Street Journal
Updated March 9, 2023 10:22 am ET
AUSTIN, Texas—Elon Musk is planning to build his own town on part of thousands of acres of newly purchased pasture and farmland outside the Texas capital, according to deeds and other land records and people familiar with the project.

Executives at the Boring Co., Mr. Musk’s tunnel operation, have discussed and researched incorporating the town in Bastrop County, about 35 miles from Austin, which would allow Mr. Musk to set some regulations in his own municipality and expedite his plans, according to people familiar with Mr. Musk’s projects.

They say Mr. Musk and his top executives want his Austin-area employees, including workers at Boring, electric-car maker Tesla Inc. TSLA -4.99% and space and exploration company SpaceX, to be able to live in new homes with below-market rents.


Land tied to Elon Musk

Gigafactory

Texas

Areas of

detail

Warehouses for the Boring Co. and SpaceX

Note: Property boundaries are approximate. Satellite imagery for Travis County as of January 2022. Bastrop County is a composite of imagery from January 2022 and November 2022.

Source: Maxar and Google Earth (satellite imagery); Travis and Bastrop Central Appraisal Districts (property boundaries)
Andrew Mollica / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The planned town is adjacent to Boring and SpaceX facilities now under construction. The site already includes a group of modular homes, a pool, an outdoor sports area and a gym, according to Facebook photos and people familiar with the town. Signs hanging from poles read “welcome, snailbrook, tx, est. 2021.”

Newsletter Sign-up

Technology

A weekly digest of tech reviews, headlines, columns and your questions answered by WSJ's Personal Tech gurus.

Snailbrook is a reference to Boring’s mascot. When Mr. Musk started the tunneling venture, he challenged employees to build boring machines that move “faster than a snail.”

Some Boring employees, including Steve Davis, the company’s president and a top lieutenant to Mr. Musk, have at times described even bigger plans, including creating an entire city, according to some of those people and text messages viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

During an all-hands meeting of Boring employees last year, Mr. Davis said they would have to hold an election for mayor, according to text messages and people familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Musk, his former girlfriend, who is the singer Grimes, Kanye West and Mr. West’s architectural designer discussed several times last year what a Musk town might look like, according to people familiar with the discussions. Those talks included broad ideas and some visual mock-ups, according to one of the people, but haven’t resulted in concrete plans.



The Snailbrook neighborhood, top, near a Boring Co. construction site. Documents filed in the Bastrop County Commissioners Court in January, above, show plans for 110 more homes near the land where Snailbrook is located.
Representatives for Mr. West, who goes by Ye, and Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Under Texas law, a town needs at least 201 residents before it can apply to incorporate, then approval from a county judge. Bastrop County hasn’t received an application from Mr. Musk or any of his entities, a spokeswoman said.

Chap Ambrose, a computer programmer who lives on a hilltop overlooking the new Boring and SpaceX facilities, said he believes “they want it to be secret. They want to do things before anyone knows really what’s happening.”

Mr. Ambrose has been seeking information from Boring and the county about the company’s research and testing of its tunneling machines and how that might affect groundwater and wells in the area.

He has sent drones over the area seeking clues to other structures Boring and SpaceX are building and what they plan to produce in their factories. Drone footage and YouTube videos he posted show the construction of tunnels between the Boring and SpaceX parcels that run beneath a public road.

Messrs. Musk and Davis didn’t respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Mr. Musk, Alex Spiro, and a top adviser who heads his family office, Jared Birchall, also didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Over the past three years, entities tied to Mr. Musk’s companies or executives have purchased at least 3,500 acres in the Austin area, collectively about four times the size of New York’s Central Park, according to county deeds and other land records. The Journal also obtained city and county emails through public-records requests, reviewed internal company communications and state licensing records, and interviewed land owners and city and county officials.


Elon Musk addressed guests at the grand opening of Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas in April 2022.Photo: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Press
Some local real-estate and land officials said they have been told by people close to Mr. Musk that the billionaire owns even more land in the area—as much as 6,000 acres.

When Mr. Musk left his longtime home of California more than two years ago, he said he had lost patience with rules and regulations in that state, where Tesla and Boring were then headquartered before moving to Texas. California is the land of “overregulation, overlitigation, overtaxation,” he said in December 2021.

Texas has fewer zoning laws and environmental and labor requirements, and has vast swaths of loosely regulated land. Unlike California, it has no corporate income tax or income or capital-gains taxes on individuals.

Last month, Tesla said it was continuing to expand in California, too, and named an office in Palo Alto as its engineering headquarters. Tesla’s corporate headquarters remains in Texas.

The Texas land purchases have taken place through at least four limited liability companies. Those companies are tied to Mr. Musk’s businesses or their officers in county deed and land records and state business filings that list their names.

The plans include a project to build a private residential compound for Mr. Musk that potentially would be some distance from the planned town, according to people familiar with the plans.

Mr. Musk has been a chief driver of the plans, and the land purchases all have to be approved by him, said people familiar with the operation.

In many of the purchases tracked by the Journal, sellers have been required to sign nondisclosure agreements, according to people who have signed them. Local economic-development officials said they were asked to sign such agreements when they were told Boring was coming to town.


Construction at a SpaceX site in Bastrop County in February.
During a spring 2020 visit to the condo of Steve Adler, then mayor of Austin, Mr. Musk sought assurances from him and an official in Travis County, where Austin is located, that government bureaucracy wouldn’t stand in the way of his many projects, Mr. Adler said. “What he wanted from the city was speed,” said Mr. Adler, a Democrat who left office when his second term ended this January.

Soon after, Mr. Musk began building the Tesla manufacturing facility known as Giga Texas—more than 10 million square feet on roughly 2,500 acres in Travis County, outside Austin, according to land records and Tesla’s website.

In neighboring Bastrop County, about an hour southeast of Austin, SpaceX is building a 500,000-square-foot facility, and, across state road 1209, Boring is building a new warehouse.

Last June, Robert Pugh, then Bastrop County’s director of engineering, complained in an email to Clara Beckett, the county commissioner in charge of planning, that staffers had been “regularly hounded” by employees and contractors of Boring and Starlink, a SpaceX unit. They want the county to “expedite and approve permit applications that are incomplete and not in compliance” with the county’s regulations, Mr. Pugh wrote.

Mr. Pugh left his job that same month and didn’t respond to requests for comment. Ms. Beckett didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The planned town would sit in Bastrop County. An entity called Gapped Bass LLC, of which state records show Boring’s Mr. Davis serving as president, now owns more than 200 acres there, all purchased within the past two years. SpaceX has purchased about 60 more acres. The land was previously owned by longtime ranchers and other Texas families.

As of last year, Boring employees could apply for a home with rents starting at about $800 a month for a two- or three-bedroom, according to an advertisement for employees viewed by the Journal and people familiar with the plans. If an employee leaves or is fired, he or she would have to vacate the house within 30 days, those people said.

The median rent in Bastrop, Texas, is about $2,200 a month, according to real-estate listing company Zillow Group Inc.

Executives have discussed opening the houses to all employees of Mr. Musk’s companies.

Gapped Bass has filed paperwork with Bastrop County to build 110 more homes in the planned town, which it calls “Project Amazing.”

Bastrop County officials approved street names such as “Boring Boulevard,” “Waterjet Way” and “Cutterhead Crossing,” according to county meeting documents.

Boring plans to convert a home on the property into a Montessori school for as many as 15 students, according to correspondence between a Boring company official and a county government employee.

Adena Lewis, the county’s director of tourism and economic development, said she isn’t sure of Boring’s time frame for the development, but the region sorely needs new housing. “They’re very respectful of us,” she said. “But they’re in a hurry.”

Ms. Lewis said the county’s small size made it attractive to Mr. Musk’s companies. “I think it’s the ability to work with folks on a direct level, and not having tons of red tape,” she said.

Mr. Musk has long envisioned building a town, and a couple of years ago helped his brother, Kimbal Musk, refine an idea to build an off-the-grid community, according to people familiar with the plans. It couldn’t be determined where that idea stands. When the Journal reached out to a spokeswoman for Kimbal Musk, describing the project, including a purported name, she said he wasn’t aware of the project as described and didn’t respond to further requests for clarification.

Mr. Musk has been a proponent of affordable housing for employees. In 2018, during a public panel discussion with then-Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Mr. Musk talked about building housing for Tesla workers alongside the company’s huge complex outside Reno.

In 2021, Mr. Musk tweeted about creating “the city of Starbase, Texas,” in Boca Chica Village, where SpaceX has operations along the Gulf of Mexico. It isn’t clear whether the city has been incorporated. A spokeswoman for Cameron County, where Boca Chica Village is located, didn’t respond to requests for comment.


June 2021


November 2022

Site of Musk company developments in Bastrop County.

Maxar Technologies (2)

Mr. Musk has explored building a private compound on some of the newly acquired land in Bastrop County, according to people familiar with his plans. For some of the past two years, he has stayed at a friend’s mansion in Austin, the Journal has reported.

The status and location of the potential house couldn’t be determined. The people familiar with the plan say the town is a separate project.

Some locals have sold land to Mr. Musk’s companies. Others who own land in Bastrop and Travis counties said they have gotten few answers from Mr. Musk’s companies about their plans, and have said they won’t sell.

Some said they feel steamrolled by eager public officials who aren’t asking enough questions. “They’re just going as fast as they can,” said Mr. Ambrose, whose home overlooks the Boring site.

In 2013, when Mr. Ambrose bought his 10 acres of hilltop land, there were only about a dozen residences within a mile. Since the spring of 2021, Boring has erected several warehouses and dug at least two test tunnels, and SpaceX is constructing the largest building in the county.

“There’s no transparency,” said David Barrow, who runs Eden East Farm on Bastrop’s North Main Street, which supports his family’s two restaurants and a farmstand.


David Barrow, who runs a farm in Bastrop, is worried the new projects could threaten water quality.
Boring employees are among his regular customers, Mr. Barrow said, but he is worried the new projects could threaten the water quality of the Colorado River and the aquifers that supply the region’s wells.

Recently, Boring applied to state environmental authorities to discharge up to 140,000 gallons of industrial wastewater a day into the river.

“I would like to know what is actually being sprayed, what they’re actually building, and who is going to hold them accountable,” Mr. Barrow said, referring to plans to disperse some wastewater onto Boring land.

Ms. Lewis, the director of tourism and economic development, said she had no concerns that the company’s development would harm the river and surrounding farmland.

After being approached by some landowners, including Mr. Ambrose, Texas State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt requested a public environmental hearing set for this month.

“We’re going to need to have more of a conversation and be able to verify the assertions that these companies are making with regard to the discharge permit into the Colorado River,” Ms. Eckhardt said.

Instead of trying to force one of the world’s richest men out of town, Mr. Ambrose said, “we can make him be a good member of the community and be a good neighbor and follow the law. And that, to me, is worth the effort.”


New Boring Co. buildings have risen near pasture land in Bastrop County.
Jim Oberman, Elisa Cho and Micah Maidenberg contributed to this article.

Header Photo Illustration Credit: DAVE COLE/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; SOURCE PHOTOS: AFP/GETTY IMAGES, PICTOMETRY, SERGIO FLORES FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES, ISTOCK

Write to Kirsten Grind at [email protected], Rebecca Elliott at [email protected], Ted Mann at [email protected] and Julie Bykowicz at [email protected]

This generation’s Fordlandia?

https://www.businessinsider.com/fordlan ... 18-12?op=1

[Farfromgeneva]

If this don’t work there’s always Guyana!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk- ... 13?mod=mhp

Elon Musk Is Planning a Texas Utopia—His Own Town

The entrepreneur is laying plans for a new community outside Austin next to Boring and SpaceX facilities, dubbed Snailbrook

By Kirsten GrindFollow
, Rebecca ElliottFollow
, Ted MannFollow
and Julie BykowiczFollow
| Photographs by Sergio Flores for The Wall Street Journal
Updated March 9, 2023 10:22 am ET
AUSTIN, Texas—Elon Musk is planning to build his own town on part of thousands of acres of newly purchased pasture and farmland outside the Texas capital, according to deeds and other land records and people familiar with the project.

Executives at the Boring Co., Mr. Musk’s tunnel operation, have discussed and researched incorporating the town in Bastrop County, about 35 miles from Austin, which would allow Mr. Musk to set some regulations in his own municipality and expedite his plans, according to people familiar with Mr. Musk’s projects.

They say Mr. Musk and his top executives want his Austin-area employees, including workers at Boring, electric-car maker Tesla Inc. TSLA -4.99% and space and exploration company SpaceX, to be able to live in new homes with below-market rents.


Land tied to Elon Musk

Gigafactory

Texas

Areas of

detail

Warehouses for the Boring Co. and SpaceX

Note: Property boundaries are approximate. Satellite imagery for Travis County as of January 2022. Bastrop County is a composite of imagery from January 2022 and November 2022.

Source: Maxar and Google Earth (satellite imagery); Travis and Bastrop Central Appraisal Districts (property boundaries)
Andrew Mollica / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The planned town is adjacent to Boring and SpaceX facilities now under construction. The site already includes a group of modular homes, a pool, an outdoor sports area and a gym, according to Facebook photos and people familiar with the town. Signs hanging from poles read “welcome, snailbrook, tx, est. 2021.”

Newsletter Sign-up

Technology

A weekly digest of tech reviews, headlines, columns and your questions answered by WSJ's Personal Tech gurus.

Snailbrook is a reference to Boring’s mascot. When Mr. Musk started the tunneling venture, he challenged employees to build boring machines that move “faster than a snail.”

Some Boring employees, including Steve Davis, the company’s president and a top lieutenant to Mr. Musk, have at times described even bigger plans, including creating an entire city, according to some of those people and text messages viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

During an all-hands meeting of Boring employees last year, Mr. Davis said they would have to hold an election for mayor, according to text messages and people familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Musk, his former girlfriend, who is the singer Grimes, Kanye West and Mr. West’s architectural designer discussed several times last year what a Musk town might look like, according to people familiar with the discussions. Those talks included broad ideas and some visual mock-ups, according to one of the people, but haven’t resulted in concrete plans.



The Snailbrook neighborhood, top, near a Boring Co. construction site. Documents filed in the Bastrop County Commissioners Court in January, above, show plans for 110 more homes near the land where Snailbrook is located.
Representatives for Mr. West, who goes by Ye, and Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Under Texas law, a town needs at least 201 residents before it can apply to incorporate, then approval from a county judge. Bastrop County hasn’t received an application from Mr. Musk or any of his entities, a spokeswoman said.

Chap Ambrose, a computer programmer who lives on a hilltop overlooking the new Boring and SpaceX facilities, said he believes “they want it to be secret. They want to do things before anyone knows really what’s happening.”

Mr. Ambrose has been seeking information from Boring and the county about the company’s research and testing of its tunneling machines and how that might affect groundwater and wells in the area.

He has sent drones over the area seeking clues to other structures Boring and SpaceX are building and what they plan to produce in their factories. Drone footage and YouTube videos he posted show the construction of tunnels between the Boring and SpaceX parcels that run beneath a public road.

Messrs. Musk and Davis didn’t respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Mr. Musk, Alex Spiro, and a top adviser who heads his family office, Jared Birchall, also didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Over the past three years, entities tied to Mr. Musk’s companies or executives have purchased at least 3,500 acres in the Austin area, collectively about four times the size of New York’s Central Park, according to county deeds and other land records. The Journal also obtained city and county emails through public-records requests, reviewed internal company communications and state licensing records, and interviewed land owners and city and county officials.


Elon Musk addressed guests at the grand opening of Tesla’s Gigafactory Texas in April 2022.Photo: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Press
Some local real-estate and land officials said they have been told by people close to Mr. Musk that the billionaire owns even more land in the area—as much as 6,000 acres.

When Mr. Musk left his longtime home of California more than two years ago, he said he had lost patience with rules and regulations in that state, where Tesla and Boring were then headquartered before moving to Texas. California is the land of “overregulation, overlitigation, overtaxation,” he said in December 2021.

Texas has fewer zoning laws and environmental and labor requirements, and has vast swaths of loosely regulated land. Unlike California, it has no corporate income tax or income or capital-gains taxes on individuals.

Last month, Tesla said it was continuing to expand in California, too, and named an office in Palo Alto as its engineering headquarters. Tesla’s corporate headquarters remains in Texas.

The Texas land purchases have taken place through at least four limited liability companies. Those companies are tied to Mr. Musk’s businesses or their officers in county deed and land records and state business filings that list their names.

The plans include a project to build a private residential compound for Mr. Musk that potentially would be some distance from the planned town, according to people familiar with the plans.

Mr. Musk has been a chief driver of the plans, and the land purchases all have to be approved by him, said people familiar with the operation.

In many of the purchases tracked by the Journal, sellers have been required to sign nondisclosure agreements, according to people who have signed them. Local economic-development officials said they were asked to sign such agreements when they were told Boring was coming to town.


Construction at a SpaceX site in Bastrop County in February.
During a spring 2020 visit to the condo of Steve Adler, then mayor of Austin, Mr. Musk sought assurances from him and an official in Travis County, where Austin is located, that government bureaucracy wouldn’t stand in the way of his many projects, Mr. Adler said. “What he wanted from the city was speed,” said Mr. Adler, a Democrat who left office when his second term ended this January.

Soon after, Mr. Musk began building the Tesla manufacturing facility known as Giga Texas—more than 10 million square feet on roughly 2,500 acres in Travis County, outside Austin, according to land records and Tesla’s website.

In neighboring Bastrop County, about an hour southeast of Austin, SpaceX is building a 500,000-square-foot facility, and, across state road 1209, Boring is building a new warehouse.

Last June, Robert Pugh, then Bastrop County’s director of engineering, complained in an email to Clara Beckett, the county commissioner in charge of planning, that staffers had been “regularly hounded” by employees and contractors of Boring and Starlink, a SpaceX unit. They want the county to “expedite and approve permit applications that are incomplete and not in compliance” with the county’s regulations, Mr. Pugh wrote.

Mr. Pugh left his job that same month and didn’t respond to requests for comment. Ms. Beckett didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The planned town would sit in Bastrop County. An entity called Gapped Bass LLC, of which state records show Boring’s Mr. Davis serving as president, now owns more than 200 acres there, all purchased within the past two years. SpaceX has purchased about 60 more acres. The land was previously owned by longtime ranchers and other Texas families.

As of last year, Boring employees could apply for a home with rents starting at about $800 a month for a two- or three-bedroom, according to an advertisement for employees viewed by the Journal and people familiar with the plans. If an employee leaves or is fired, he or she would have to vacate the house within 30 days, those people said.

The median rent in Bastrop, Texas, is about $2,200 a month, according to real-estate listing company Zillow Group Inc.

Executives have discussed opening the houses to all employees of Mr. Musk’s companies.

Gapped Bass has filed paperwork with Bastrop County to build 110 more homes in the planned town, which it calls “Project Amazing.”

Bastrop County officials approved street names such as “Boring Boulevard,” “Waterjet Way” and “Cutterhead Crossing,” according to county meeting documents.

Boring plans to convert a home on the property into a Montessori school for as many as 15 students, according to correspondence between a Boring company official and a county government employee.

Adena Lewis, the county’s director of tourism and economic development, said she isn’t sure of Boring’s time frame for the development, but the region sorely needs new housing. “They’re very respectful of us,” she said. “But they’re in a hurry.”

Ms. Lewis said the county’s small size made it attractive to Mr. Musk’s companies. “I think it’s the ability to work with folks on a direct level, and not having tons of red tape,” she said.

Mr. Musk has long envisioned building a town, and a couple of years ago helped his brother, Kimbal Musk, refine an idea to build an off-the-grid community, according to people familiar with the plans. It couldn’t be determined where that idea stands. When the Journal reached out to a spokeswoman for Kimbal Musk, describing the project, including a purported name, she said he wasn’t aware of the project as described and didn’t respond to further requests for clarification.

Mr. Musk has been a proponent of affordable housing for employees. In 2018, during a public panel discussion with then-Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Mr. Musk talked about building housing for Tesla workers alongside the company’s huge complex outside Reno.

In 2021, Mr. Musk tweeted about creating “the city of Starbase, Texas,” in Boca Chica Village, where SpaceX has operations along the Gulf of Mexico. It isn’t clear whether the city has been incorporated. A spokeswoman for Cameron County, where Boca Chica Village is located, didn’t respond to requests for comment.


June 2021


November 2022

Site of Musk company developments in Bastrop County.

Maxar Technologies (2)

Mr. Musk has explored building a private compound on some of the newly acquired land in Bastrop County, according to people familiar with his plans. For some of the past two years, he has stayed at a friend’s mansion in Austin, the Journal has reported.

The status and location of the potential house couldn’t be determined. The people familiar with the plan say the town is a separate project.

Some locals have sold land to Mr. Musk’s companies. Others who own land in Bastrop and Travis counties said they have gotten few answers from Mr. Musk’s companies about their plans, and have said they won’t sell.

Some said they feel steamrolled by eager public officials who aren’t asking enough questions. “They’re just going as fast as they can,” said Mr. Ambrose, whose home overlooks the Boring site.

In 2013, when Mr. Ambrose bought his 10 acres of hilltop land, there were only about a dozen residences within a mile. Since the spring of 2021, Boring has erected several warehouses and dug at least two test tunnels, and SpaceX is constructing the largest building in the county.

“There’s no transparency,” said David Barrow, who runs Eden East Farm on Bastrop’s North Main Street, which supports his family’s two restaurants and a farmstand.


David Barrow, who runs a farm in Bastrop, is worried the new projects could threaten water quality.
Boring employees are among his regular customers, Mr. Barrow said, but he is worried the new projects could threaten the water quality of the Colorado River and the aquifers that supply the region’s wells.

Recently, Boring applied to state environmental authorities to discharge up to 140,000 gallons of industrial wastewater a day into the river.

“I would like to know what is actually being sprayed, what they’re actually building, and who is going to hold them accountable,” Mr. Barrow said, referring to plans to disperse some wastewater onto Boring land.

Ms. Lewis, the director of tourism and economic development, said she had no concerns that the company’s development would harm the river and surrounding farmland.

After being approached by some landowners, including Mr. Ambrose, Texas State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt requested a public environmental hearing set for this month.

“We’re going to need to have more of a conversation and be able to verify the assertions that these companies are making with regard to the discharge permit into the Colorado River,” Ms. Eckhardt said.

Instead of trying to force one of the world’s richest men out of town, Mr. Ambrose said, “we can make him be a good member of the community and be a good neighbor and follow the law. And that, to me, is worth the effort.”


New Boring Co. buildings have risen near pasture land in Bastrop County.
Jim Oberman, Elisa Cho and Micah Maidenberg contributed to this article.

Header Photo Illustration Credit: DAVE COLE/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; SOURCE PHOTOS: AFP/GETTY IMAGES, PICTOMETRY, SERGIO FLORES FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES, ISTOCK

Write to Kirsten Grind at [email protected], Rebecca Elliott at [email protected], Ted Mann at [email protected] and Julie Bykowicz at [email protected]

This generation’s Fordlandia?

https://www.businessinsider.com/fordlan ... 18-12?op=1

I was thinking he’s taking the UNHW/billionaire game of buying up land to its logical conclusion of a reversion to feudalism.

[PizzaSnake]

If this don’t work there’s always Guyana!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk- ... 13?mod=mhp

Elon Musk Is Planning a Texas Utopia—His Own Town

The entrepreneur is laying plans for a new community outside Austin next to Boring and SpaceX facilities, dubbed Snailbrook

This generation’s Fordlandia?

https://www.businessinsider.com/fordlan ... 18-12?op=1

I was thinking he’s taking the UNHW/billionaire game of buying up land to its logical conclusion of a reversion to feudalism.

Heavy is the dcikhead who wears the crown...

[NattyBohChamps04]

St. Peter don't you call me, cause I can't go...

[SCLaxAttack]

If this don’t work there’s always Guyana!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk- ... 13?mod=mhp

Elon Musk Is Planning a Texas Utopia—His Own Town

The entrepreneur is laying plans for a new community outside Austin next to Boring and SpaceX facilities, dubbed Snailbrook

This generation’s Fordlandia?

https://www.businessinsider.com/fordlan ... 18-12?op=1

I was thinking he’s taking the UNHW/billionaire game of buying up land to its logical conclusion of a reversion to feudalism.

Heavy is the dcikhead who wears the crown...

Pottersville. Where's George Bailey when you need him?

[jhu72]

The truth about Musk's concern about AI.

[jhu72]

Pot calling kettle black. Rattlesnakes biting each other.