The Zhitong Finance App learned that according to a public hearing notice posted on the Starbase (Starbase) website, SpaceX (SPCX.US) plans to build, own and operate a gas power plant and a supercomputing facility in its corporate town in Staveth, Texas.
According to the documents, the initial investment amount of the project is expected to be 24 billion US dollars. The notice said that the project may be implemented in multiple stages and may include future expansion. SpaceX has applied for property tax relief for the project. The city commissioner will review and approve tax relief and development agreements at a meeting on December 9.
The plan sends the latest signal: CEO Elon Musk is pushing SpaceX to build a vertical integration of the entire industry chain around natural gas. Natural gas is currently the main power generation fuel for data center developers to guarantee the commissioning of projects; at the same time, SpaceX also plans to use natural gas that has been deeply purified and treated at ultra-low temperature to provide fuel for some rocket launch missions.
As early as September of this year, SpaceX proposed a plan to build its own gas pipeline in Florida to deliver fuel to the starship rocket at Cape Canaveral. The company is also recruiting gas traders at the interplanetary base and Cape Canaveral, instead of simply relying on external logistics service providers to match the growing demand for fuel and electricity.
Starbase City was officially established in 2025, and currently hundreds of SpaceX employees and their families have settled in. According to the announcement, the proposed project is located within the urban area of Star Base, covering an area of 444 acres, on the east side of Brownsville.
The surge in electricity demand for data centers and new plants has boosted the construction demand for gas power plants, and Musk has always advocated a vertical integration model. SpaceX is also planning to build its own gas power plant to power its large-scale semiconductor manufacturing site jointly developed with Tesla (TSLA.US) in Grimes County, a suburb of Houston. Building its own power plant will save SpaceX from waiting years to connect the project to the main Texas grid.
The notice did not specify the extent or duration of the reduction, nor did it provide details on the installed capacity of the power plant or the calculation of the scale of the operation.
However, Musk's plans to implement this supercomputing center and supporting gas infrastructure may face resistance.
Currently, anti-data center sentiment is heating up across the US: after the midterm elections, Democrats controlled the US Congress and the Texas governor's office, and some Democrats advocated suspending new projects during the election campaign; the incoming Texas Democratic Governor Gina Sinojosa is part of the campaign platform to control the construction of new data centers. Protests broke out in many parts of the US due to rising electricity prices and data center environmental disputes, including protests against SpaceX's data center cluster in Memphis. According to information, voters rejected data center related measures in 40 of 41 local referendums.