SpaceX Eyes $24 Billion Data Center and Gas Plant in Starbase, Texas

SpaceX plans to spend an estimated $24 billion on the first phase of a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility at its company town in Starbase, Texas, according to a notice of a public hearing posted on the city's website.

The city commissioner will consider approval of a tax abatement and development agreement at a Dec. 9 meeting. The proposal covers a 444-acre tract east of Brownsville, inside the corporate limits of Starbase, a city incorporated in 2025 that houses several hundred SpaceX employees and their families.

Why is SpaceX building its own gas infrastructure?

The plan is the latest sign that CEO Elon Musk wants to vertically integrate SpaceX's value chain for natural gas. Gas is the primary power-plant fuel that data center developers now use to get their facilities up and running. SpaceX also wants to fuel some of its rocket launches with a super-chilled and purified form of the gas.

The company has already moved in that direction. In September, SpaceX proposed building its own pipeline in Florida to transport gas to its Starship rockets at Cape Canaveral. It has also been hiring gas traders in Starbase and Cape Canaveral to support its growing fuel and power needs, rather than relying on external logistics companies.

The Starbase project fits a broader pattern. Surging power demand from data centers and new factories has driven a wave of gas plant construction, and Musk has long argued for vertical integration. SpaceX also plans to build its own gas-fired power plant to supply the massive semiconductor manufacturing facility it is developing with Tesla Inc. in Grimes County, outside Houston.

What could block the plan?

Politics may prove the harder obstacle than engineering. Texas' incoming Democratic governor, Gina Hinojosa, ran in part on a promise to tame new data center construction, and she could stall Musk's effort to bring the super-compute facility and its gas infrastructure online.

The pressure is not unique to Texas. Rising power prices and concerns about the environmental impact of data centers have triggered protests around the country, including demonstrations against the SpaceXSI data center complex in Memphis.

What does the Dec. 9 decision decide?

The commissioner's vote covers a tax abatement and a development agreement — the local instruments that would let the project proceed on the 444-acre site. The $24 billion figure covers only the initial phase, which signals that the full buildout could grow well beyond that sum if the company expands capacity in later stages.

The proposal also shows how the data center business is changing. Companies that once bought power from utilities now seek to own the fuel, the pipeline, the plant and the computing campus in one corporate perimeter. SpaceX's filings in Texas and Florida suggest Musk intends to control the entire chain from gas well to launch pad to server rack, and the Dec. 9 vote will show whether Starbase's city government is willing to underwrite that model with a tax break.