Elon Musk‘s new Tesla Optimus robots appeared in a dystopian Christmas card-themed advertisement as the SpaceX founder moves forward with his plans to create a new Texas town.
In a Christmas Eve post on X, two of the Optimus robots were seen wearing a Santa Claus hat and Christmas sweaters – including one featuring a Tesla car that read ‘Silent Night, Electric Light.’
‘They grow up so fast,’ the company wrote as it tried to advertise the $30,000 devices designed to help with household chores as a good present for the holidays.
Meanwhile, employees of his other company, SpaceX, gathered signatures and filed an official petition to hold an election in the first major step to create their own company town, called Starbase, in coastal South Texas, the New York Times reports.
If the petition were to be approved by a Cameron County judge, residents within a mile and a half of Musk’s Starbase would be allowed to cast a ballot for three new city officials – including its first mayor, which it suggests should be SpaceX’s security manager, Gunnar Milburn.
The petition describes a community of about 500 inhabitants, including at least 219 primary residents and more than 100 children.
Nearly everyone in the proposed town is a renter, living in company-owned homes around the company’s main buildings and work for the rocket company.
It remains unclear why the proposed leader of the Department of Government Efficiency wants to incorporate a town.
But in a letter filed along with the petition, Kathryn Lueders, SpaceX’s general manager for Starbase, said the company needed ‘the ability to grow Starbase as a community.’
She also noted that the company ‘currently performs civil functions’ due to its remote location, including managing utilities and providing schooling and medical care.
‘We are investing billions in infrastructure and generating hundreds of millions in income and taxes for local businesses and government, all with the goal of making South Texas the Gateway to Mars,’ Luenders wrote in her letter to the Cameron County judge – who must approve the petition if it meets all the legal requirements.
‘Incorporating Starbase will streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world class place to live – for the hundreds already calling it home, as well as for prospective workers eager to help build humanity’s future in space.’
Richard Cardile Sr., the manager of spaceport operations for SpaceX, also wrote in an affidavit that the company ‘is the predominant landowner in the proposed Starbase area and with only a few exceptions, owns all the real property.
He said the company keeps ‘detailed records of all individuals who reside in each dwelling unit in the proposed city of Starbase.’
Creating the city could also help the company as it faces local opposition in Cameron County from environmental groups over the effects of its large-scale and frequent launches on nearby protected coastal ecology.
Residents and officials from Brownsville, about 20 miles away, have also complained that the launches shut down roads and cut them off from the beach.
But at first, SpaceX only appeared interested in having the area’s name changed for the purposes of postal delivery. An application to do so is now pending before the federal agency.
‘We thought that was what they were really looking for, but I guess they wanted to extend that a little further,’ Judge Eddie Trevino Jr told the Times.
‘Obviously, they think that there’s some advantage to it.’
As a city, Starbase could create its own police or fire department, issue its own ordinances and maintain roads. It would also be eligible for state and federal grants, and the city would have certain immunity from lawsuits and condemn property.
Incorporation would also allow the community to elect their own local leaders and create a municipal utility system.
Trevino said the county’s legal team and elections office are now studying the petition to determine whether it meets legal requirements.
If it does, an election for city officials could be scheduled as early as next year, which residents say they are excited for.
Cayatana Polanco, for example, told the Times she hoped Starbase could be ‘a model of what new cities should be.’
‘If all goes through with this petition, my baby might be the first child born in this city,’ said Polanco, who does not work for SpaceX but who said her husband does.
‘It would be pretty epic.’
