Report: Elon Musk is Building His Own Town in Texas

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is planning to build his own town on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, The Wall Street Journal reports.

It's apparently called "Snailbrook" — named after the Musk-founded Boring Company's gastropod mascot — and has reportedly been described by both Musk and his employees as his vision for a "Texas Utopia" along the Colorado River where SpaceX, Boring Company, and Tesla employees can live, work, and play, and never have to leave.

Also, Claire "Grimes" Boucher, Musk's on-and-off-again ex-girlfriend, and Kanye "Ye" West, the antisemitic rapper who recently said that he was a personal fan of Hitler, have both consulted on the town's design, according to the report.

So, essentially, an entire town where employees work as well as live and play under Musk's watchful eye. Sounds like... fun, especially given the record of "company towns" that have historically been prone to exploitation.

Of course, if there were a yearbook vote on "CEO Likeliest to Build Their Own Town," Musk would absolutely win.

But whether such a town would actually amount to becoming a "utopia" is far less certain. Despite his self-avowed free speech absolutism, the billionaire has never been known to be friendly to dissidence or criticism among any of his many companies' ranks.

His Twitter takeover in particular has provided the public with a fresh front-row seat to exactly how little he likes to be disagreed with, with multiple reports alleging that he increasingly surrounds himself with sycophants while firing employees for simply disagreeing with him.

And on a more tangible note, Musk is also a vocal opponent of regulation, and building his own municipality would almost certainly give him a lot of consolidated personal power over what he and his companies are allowed to do.

Indeed, per the WSJ, executives at The Boring Company have already "discussed and researched incorporating the town in Bastrop County" — an area that sits roughly 35 miles outside of Austin, where SpaceX and Boring facilities are currently being built — with sources telling the paper that this would allow the entrepreneur to "set some regulations in his own municipality and expedite his plans."

And Musk and his collaborators have already started making at least some progress. According to the report, "entities tied to" Musk companies and their executives have purchased a collective 3,500 acres of land in the Austin area over the past three years.

The report also claims that some street names, including "Boring Boulevard," "Waterjet Way," and "Cutterhead Crossing," have already been approved by Bastrop County officials.

And last year, Boring Company CEO Steve Davis — who some think is the favorite to take over the CEO spot at Twitter — apparently told Boring employees in an all-hands meeting that the town would have to hold mayoral elections. But as New York Mag notes, it would probably be hard to win that mayoral race Musk runs. And, frankly, we could definitely see a scenario where Musk just fires the person who dares to campaign against him.

But Musk's ambitious plans could meet some serious headwinds, especially considering the impact they could have on people who already live in Bastrop County.

That means Musk and his collaborators are trying to keep the mammoth project under wraps for now.

"They want it to be secret," Chap Ambrose, a computer engineer who reportedly lives on a "hilltop overlooking the new Boring and SpaceX facilities," told the WSJ. "They want to do things before anyone knows really what's happening."

"They're just going as fast as they can," added Ambrose, telling the paper that he's concerned about what impacts the massive factories will have on the area's water sources.

"I would like to know what is actually being sprayed, what they're actually building, and who is going to hold them accountable," a local farmer named David Barrow also told the WSJ.

Of course, considering that Musk's follow-through is far from the best, there's still a chance the town could never actually come to fruition — or at the very least, could just take way longer than anticipated. He's also been saying that he's overwhelmed, and building a town probably isn't the easiest thing to add to one's plate.

But if it does happen, let's just hope, for the sake of Snailbrook's future constituents, employees, and hostages, that he springs for some functioning bathrooms at the very least.

READ MORE: Elon Musk Is Planning a Texas Utopia—His Own Town [The Wall Street Journal]

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