Tesla CEO Elon Musk has plans to build his own town in the Austin, Texas, area after purchasing thousands of acres.
The town is being pitched as a sort of utopia that would run along the Colorado River, the Wall Street Journal reported. Executives at one of Musk’s companies, The Boring Company, have discussed plans for incorporating the town into Bastrop County. The county is 35 miles outside of Austin and would allow Musk to set up his some of his own regulations to help set forth the plan.
Musk and his top executives plan to have some Tesla, SpaceX, and Boring employees live in below-market-priced homes. The town site already includes installations of a pool, gym, outdoor sports area, and a group of modular homes.
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The town is named Snailbrook, and signs hanging around the town state, “welcome, snailbrook, tx, est. 2021.”
The world’s richest person relocated from California after complaining about the state’s high taxes and strict regulations. He has sometimes stayed at a friend’s Austin mansion over the past two years. In December 2021 he commented, California is the land of “overregulation, overlitigation, overtaxation.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, concerns have been raised over the threat of the town’s construction damaging the water supply from the Colorado River. David Barrow, who runs Eden East Farm on Bastrop’s North Main Street, stated, “There’s no transparency,”
Barrow further raised his concerns over the plans to disperse wastewater over Boring land: “I would like to know what is actually being sprayed, what they’re actually building, and who is going to hold them accountable.”
Texas State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt requested a public environmental hearing for this month after being approached by landowners and their concerns.
Eckhardt commented, “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.”
