Elon Musk Plans New City in Texas - Called Starbase and Led by 'The Doge' (entrepreneur.com) 158
schwit1 shares an article from Entrepreneur:
If anyone has the ability to surprise the world with his ambitious projects, it is Elon Musk . The billionaire announced that he is building a new city in Texas to be called Starbase, around the rocket launch site of his company SpaceX...
Later, he alluded to his project to colonize the red planet, hinting that Starbase would be just the beginning to go further. "From there to Mars. And hence the Stars," detailed the CEO of Tesla.
The tycoon, who is currently the second richest person in the world , said that his city will occupy an area "much larger" than Boca Chica , a place that houses a launch site for SpaceX and where the company is building its Starship rocket... Eddie Treviño, judge for Cameron County, Texas, confirmed that SpaceX informed the authorities of Elon Musk's intention: to incorporate Boca Chica into the city of Starbase . The official noted that the mogul and his company must comply with all state statutes of incorporation and clarified that the county will process any petition in accordance with the law.
Musk also tweeted that the leader of his new city "shall be The Doge," linking to a Wikipedia definition for the Venetian word doge (meaning either "military commander" or "spiritual leader".)
Musk made his remark in response to a Twitter user named Wootiez, who had asked him whether his new city would be dog friendly.
Later, he alluded to his project to colonize the red planet, hinting that Starbase would be just the beginning to go further. "From there to Mars. And hence the Stars," detailed the CEO of Tesla.
The tycoon, who is currently the second richest person in the world , said that his city will occupy an area "much larger" than Boca Chica , a place that houses a launch site for SpaceX and where the company is building its Starship rocket... Eddie Treviño, judge for Cameron County, Texas, confirmed that SpaceX informed the authorities of Elon Musk's intention: to incorporate Boca Chica into the city of Starbase . The official noted that the mogul and his company must comply with all state statutes of incorporation and clarified that the county will process any petition in accordance with the law.
Musk also tweeted that the leader of his new city "shall be The Doge," linking to a Wikipedia definition for the Venetian word doge (meaning either "military commander" or "spiritual leader".)
Musk made his remark in response to a Twitter user named Wootiez, who had asked him whether his new city would be dog friendly.
Done before. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think there have been enough company towns to know where this is going and why it's a bad idea.
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Musk has consumed too many drugs and is far too full of himself to actually know or understand historic precedent.
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Wasn't there already something about Earth laws now being valid on Mars?
Good luck getting hold of a policeman on Mars. And then good luck getting hold of a lawyer.
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They're going to have to keep coming to the Earth for supplies for the foreseeable future, so will be dependent on the good will of Earth governments to let them launch and not shoot them down after launching.
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And that cult following thing is starting to get rather creepy, creepier than that golden Trump icon.
It's kind of depressing to see how stupid the masses are, but what are you going to do? Go to Mars where they'll make you join the Church of Elon Musk?
more like Hugo Drax (Score:3)
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Re: Done before. (Score:2)
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From the perspective of any particular country, Mars isn't any different than Earth when it comes to Colonies.
That is what is so worrying. Read Joseph Conrad's classic Heart of Darkness [sparknotes.com]. Musk is beginning to look like Kurtz.
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I refer you to his past. His entire empire has been a recipient of billions.
> Quite a number of suburbs that allowed flight from the city have been created over the past 50 years using HUD money and propagated by bribing the Texas Lege.
That may be true, but that doesnt refute my statement about his benefits from tax payers. I didnt ask if suburbs have been built.
Re:Done before. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think there have been enough company towns to know where this is going and why it's a bad idea.
You're right - and some of his fans will be triggered. The whole Elon Musk thing is getting a little concerning. He is a smart guy, but as of recent, his eccentricity is getting concerning. As of late, I've seen articles where he gives his advice on how to raise children with the same level of sccess as he has raised. How you can sleep like Elon Musk. His fans have been turning any articles about rockets into demands for elimination of Boeing and NASA.
It's even gotten to the point that we hear them freaking out about wasting tax dollars on the "failure" of the SLS rocket test via an early shutdown, while claiming that the Starship hard landing with bounce, then explosion was a great success.
Now a special city for them to live in one designed by the man they are at present regarding with something resembling worship. We've seen this sort of thing before, and it does not end well. He is reaching enough fame and money that his eccentricities are being magnified, and the fans marking me as a troll on Slashdot do not change that fact. Good luck in your new city, fans.
Re:Done before. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Hang on, hang on. You mean to tell me there are serious, actual human beings who think SLS isn't just a jobs program that was never supposed to succeed? I thought that was the one thing we all agreed on!
But if you mean serious people that have more of an interest in Rocketry than the Ford versus Chevy corner garage arguments of the Spacex (Musk) uber alles and versus the universe mindset - and are operating in an echo chamber?
Yes.
Re: Done before. (Score:3)
Re: Done before. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the constant adulation these guys get must massively unhealthy for their egos. Just imagine year after year, decade after decade being surrounded by sycophants. Think of how that would change you. It cannot be healthy.
Exactly. An example of that is what happened to Michael Jackson. Although Jackson had some issues to begin with, but as his derangement progressed, he was "protected" by his money and fame. Howard Hughes was another example. He ended up pretty deranged, and in the 1970's there were treatments foor his mental issues, but with all his money, he shut himself away, and ended up dying prematurely.
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It's even gotten to the point that we hear them freaking out about wasting tax dollars on the "failure" of the SLS rocket test via an early shutdown, while claiming that the Starship hard landing with bounce, then explosion was a great success.
A great success, I don't know. A success, progress in the craft's development, and progress toward the real future of rocketry -- for sure. SLS has nothing to stand on, except being a jobs program. It's a $20 Billion project (so far) that's overdue and overbudget and will cost nearly $1 Billion per rocket (though I've seen $2B quoted too). People are freaking out because SpaceX built most of what it has done on the estimated cost of this single program and lets not get started on the Orion program.
NASA/Boei
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It's even gotten to the point that we hear them freaking out about wasting tax dollars on the "failure" of the SLS rocket test via an early shutdown, while claiming that the Starship hard landing with bounce, then explosion was a great success.
A great success, I don't know. A success, progress in the craft's development, and progress toward the real future of rocketry -- for sure.
Using the Spacex fan's metric that the important thing is data collected equals success, the SLS engine test was also a success. What is more, the engines are still there and operable. I saw the overflight of the Starship 10 success - think they are going to reuse that stuff?
SLS has nothing to stand on, except being a jobs program. It's a $20 Billion project (so far) that's overdue and overbudget and will cost nearly $1 Billion per rocket (though I've seen $2B quoted too). People are freaking out because SpaceX built most of what it has done on the estimated cost of this single program and lets not get started on the Orion program.
NASA/Boeing and ULA are building rocket tech that will have no place in the industry here in the next 10 years -- primarily on the taxpayers dime. If that's not a failure I don't know what is, the static fire failure a few months ago is just the icing on the cake.
Looka at you! Declaring the static test a failure, while defending the total destruction of Starship 10 a success! You're in the cult!
Wow - just curious - when the inevitble really bad day happens, and an accident in one of his ships
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Looka at you! Declaring the static test a failure, while defending the total destruction of Starship 10 a success! You're in the cult!
The failures on both aren't even apples to apples. The SLS Green Run was the equivalent of SpaceX doing a static fire on the pad prior to launching payload. That same SLS rocket and engines are supposed to be flying a mission for the Artemis program here in 8 months where they'll deliver a payload into a trans-lunar injection trajectory. A comparable recent failure for SpaceX would have been that one F9 failing to land on the drone ship and blowing up in the ocean, because there was probably a future Starli
Re:Done before. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, look at Corning, NY
It was the company town for Corning Glass Works (now Corning Incorporated) :
Over 147 years later, Corning continues to maintain its world headquarters at Corning, N.Y. The firm also established one of the first industrial research labs there in 1908. It continues to expand the nearby research and development facility, as well as operations associated with catalytic converters and diesel engine filter product lines. Corning has a long history of community development and has assured community leaders that it intends to remain headquartered in its small upstate New York hometown. - wikipedia
It was not uncommon for locally headed corporations to spend a significant amount of money on local education, public works, etc... However, those days have ended for many companies that got bought up into conglomerates (killing smaller company towns) and then heavily leveraged and turned into ghosts of their former selves by shipping manufacturing off-shores.
I will grant you that not all company towns were as nice, and some mining towns in Arizona even killed their own workforce when faced with complaints.
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I think it might be okay for a certain types of people. In this case, the kind of person with a high tolerance to things exploding.
SpaceX: Inventing the future one explosion at a time!
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I think there have been enough company towns to know where this is going and why it's a bad idea.
Err, no. Can you elaborate? Perhaps your local history is different to mine.
See Model village [wikipedia.org]
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From what I remember about some of the Doge's, Il Duce would be an improvement.
Re: "The Doge"? What a puny title! (Score:2)
Doge is absolutely pronounced like a Venetian ruler. I don't know where you get dog-E from. The creator of doge coin hasn't kept the pronunciation a secret.
TSLA Shorts Rejoice (Score:2)
Elon Musk will kill TSLA with this nonsense and the BTC/dogecoin shenanigans. Hopefully SpaceX is not a casualty as well.
Re: TSLA Shorts Rejoice (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: TSLA Shorts Rejoice (Score:5, Informative)
Re: TSLA Shorts Rejoice (Score:5, Insightful)
Bill Gates is following in the grand tradition of the American robber baron. Make a zillion dollars by whatever means necessary, then spend as much of it as you can in your old age to atone.
Gates can spend lots of money on philanthropy because he's retired. He doesn't need his shares to maintain control of his company, and many of the restrictions on selling them are gone. So he can trade them for money to do other things.
Musk and Bezos are still in the accumulation phase. They don't really have much money, just shares in their companies, which they can't just sell off or give away.
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Bill Gates is following in the grand tradition of the American robber baron.
Oh please. Microsoft might have used underhanded tactics, but their core success resulted from them being actually one of the best in what they were doing.
For one thing, underhanded monopolistic tactics simply don't work until you BECOME a monopolist.
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I don't recall saying "monopolistic." Nope, I didn't. Hullo Mr. Scarecrow!
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but their core success resulted from them being actually one of the best in what they were doing.
I don't think there was any time in the history of the universe that a Microsoft OS was the best available.
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I mean, in 1992 it was the OS available. You could use it on standard hardware (not Mac specific stuff) and use it for power-user things. And it had software.
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I don't think there was any time in the history of the universe that a Microsoft OS was the best available.
MS was the best OS for PCs throughout the early 90-s to the late 2000-s. Windows 3 was the first true GUI OS for PCs. And Windows 95 allowed a 32-bit GUI OS to run even on modest computers (the minimum requirement was 4Mb of RAM!). And both operating systems had excellent support for gaming.
Well, I guess BeOS was better than Windows 95 at the end of 90-s, but it was not better than Windows NT.
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OS/2 was clearly better than Windows 95, even if you only consider paid operating systems for the crappy IBM PC hardware.
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Marketing and lock-in. Businesses started with Microsoft because that's what IBM recommended to them. Businesses chose Windows over OS/2 because they were locked in to DOS/Windows by that point.
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Businesses chose Windows over OS/2 because they were locked in to DOS/Windows by that point.
OS/2 supported DOS mode. But OS/2 in early 90-s was crap, its GUI constantly locked up (single message queue for all applications) and it cost an arm and a leg. The first non-braindead OS/2 was Warp 4 released on 1996 (I know, I got it the day it became available).
But by that time Win95 was widely available and it was much faster on my computer. MS Office also worked really well on Win95.
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Why would thousands (millions?) of businesses choose the Microsoft OS if it weren't the best available?
They did not choose Microsoft, which was an insignificant hobbyist 3-man software company until IBM picked them up. Businesses chose IBM ("No-one was ever sacked for chosing IBM" was a meme at the time) and Microsoft's OS just came with the IBM PC.
Actually, it was not Microsoft's OS at the time they "sold" it to IBM, it was Seattle Computer Products' OS. Having "sold" it to IBM, Microsoft then bought it (and its developer) from SCP (under false pretences) and then licensed it to IBM, although MS did pa
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They had luck in timing, had luck in dealing with a huge company's side project that wasn't considered likely to succeed and were worried about anti-trust.
Gates's innovations was bullshitting, "I have an operating system" and licensing, "I'll license it to you and keep the rights to sell it and set the prices for other operating systems"
Then they did the underhanded monopolistic tactics.
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If IBM had done a tiny bit or research they could have bought it directly from SCP. SCP had no idea that Gates already had a deal to sell their OS to IBM; later SCP were going to sue MS over it, but they reached an out of court sett
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I mean, Bezos invested $250,000 in Google pretty early. Early enought that that investment alone would make him angling for a place in the top 50 on Forbes's top 400 list, above such famous investors as Soros or Charles Schwab or tech titans like Jack Dorsey or fashion guy Ralph Lauren.
To say nothing of, of course they can give away or sell shar
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If you give away or sell your shares, you lose control over your company. Even if you have a minority stake, if you decrease that stake you lose influence. And if you're an officer of a company you can't just sell shares as you like.
Bezos certainly isn't poor, but he doesn't just have 180 billion dollar bills stacked up in an Amazon warehouse somewhere. The vast majority of his assets are as imaginary as bitcoin.
Re: TSLA Shorts Rejoice (Score:2)
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But he is not spending as much as he can. He is richer than when he first created the pledge to give away his wealth.
I like Bill Gates the philanthropist, but the pledge is clearly bullshit. Paul Allen did not follow through on it, and none of the other billionaires that have signed it have made significant moves to give away a significant percentage of their money (or their stock shares). A cynical part of me thinks of the pledge as a tax dodge (as in, there is no need to tax us billionaires properly becau
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He's "richer," on paper at least, because Microsoft shares keep going up. Gates at least seems to be trying to disburse his fortune in a useful way, and he's got lots of time left to do it. His getting "richer" probably means more money going to important research.
I think a system that allows unreasonable concentrations of wealth and relies on the philanthropy of the people who hold it is a bad one. Gates not being able to give away his money as fast as he passively accumulates it is a symptom of that syste
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Can you list the billions he has sucked from local and governments in benefits and tax avoidance ?
Those tens of billions could have given free medical to thousands of people. Forget about the Russians and Chinese, Billions like Bezos have taken far more that could have saved thousnads of americans every year.
It was discussed (Score:2)
It's worth a watch even though it's kind of long. It's a good breakdown of why we shouldn't let a handful of billionaires run everything. Think of it this way, if you look into China's mass famine a big part of it was because nobody wanted to tell Chairman Mao how to farm. He insisted farmers double plant and that worked like you'd expect. Boom, instant famine.
Mao wasn't smart, he was ruthless and cunning. The same is true for most if not all Billionaires. The winner in the free market is seldom
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As opposed to the american worship of the billionaire and pretend they help people when the reality is they screw more people than the rest of the country ?
The biggest enemy of the american people today are their ceos and billionaires. Nobody makes their life worse than that group and you want to pretend that the same pe
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There's precedent for that--Howard Hughes. A founder losing his faculties doesn't cause the businesses to go away. Hughes companies were managed by various other people, sold off, and merged with other companies. To the extent that Musk creates valuable enterprises, they tend to have a life of their own. Even though corporations aren't real people to you and me, they are to the legal system and they are virtually immortal. I think back then they had more respect for people and they quietly let HH go in
Toyota Woven City (Score:2)
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> TSLA
You know you rant a lot when typing E's slows you down from getting the message out.
I assumed he meant the stock itself. Because he probably did.
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Re: TSLA Shorts Rejoice (Score:2)
This isn't funny anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone's left who still understands why that's bad (after the last election I'm starting to wonder) now is the time to stop it.
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That's true, but it's a practice that is sometimes abused -- as in the municipalities in Missouri that are designed to be financially dependent on municipal court revenues.
It also makes a difference being run by the world's second richest man. That's a lot of power, and abuses which are legal but not practical for other men might well be in his power.
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He's not trying to get his own State. And any city will still be bound by State law, in whatever State it's in.
Far as I can tell, all he really wants is the name, and a place that he can conveniently launch over the Gulf on....
Re:This isn't funny anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
He's building something that used to be called a company town. That may not be technically a state, but it's not the equivalent of a town that is organized and controlled by its residents.
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Democracy doesn't guarantee electorates will make a good decision, but it gives them an opportunity to change their mind when they realize they've made a bad one.
Re:This isn't funny anymore (Score:4, Interesting)
He's 'developing' a city where people already live. They're doing this because the people left turned down their buyout offers, so now they're going to run them out through alternative means.
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Re: This isn't funny anymore (Score:2)
It's practice for one on Mars.
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That will turn into monarchy.
Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Australia, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Japan - these are the major monarchies today.
Not quite a list of countries known for treating their workers badly. (OK I left out the Arabs.)
What was your point? How did that minimum wage legislation go?
Wow, so scare (Score:3)
Do they (Score:2)
No thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
Think twice before you head off to Muskville, Cult leaders often ask for the ultimate sacrifice from the people they own.
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"Think twice before you head off to Muskville"
Residents would be known as "hounds"...of Muskville.
Re: No thanks (Score:2)
Signing up to colonize Mars definitely sounds like an ultimate sacrifice.
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Signing up to colonize Mars definitely sounds like an ultimate sacrifice.
Wat? Livin in a cave on an almost atmosphere free radiation and perchlorate rich environment isn't a life of joy?
You forget,they will see dear leader Muskie every day. It'll be like heaven.
What's In a Naime (Score:3)
So, "Doge City"?
Doge not a tyrant, but representative of democracy (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Doge not a tyrant, but representative of democr (Score:5, Informative)
I hope Musk realizes that calling it doge is more to do with its original Venetian meaning, rather than its more modern and unfortunate (to say the least) interpretation (the "Duce").
Pretty sure Musk is naming it after the meme Doge. As in Dogecoin.
You know, this Doge [google.com]
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Well, at least they were elected by the Patrician class, can't have those common plebeians voting (though they did at the beginning). It was also usually an office held for life.
Still probably cheaper than (Score:3)
rent and leases in California.
I'm guessing the other reason is to minimize complaints over tests and launches in the area.
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It depends on the business. In CA, they seem willing to value start-ups on paper at eight-digits. So, you know, if you plan to raise money it might be nice to get that kind of valuation. Sure, rent and salaries will be higher too, but some things (ads, cloud hosting) are location independent, so you get more of that.
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rent and leases in California.
I'm guessing the other reason is to minimize complaints over tests and launches in the area.
Or not have to worry that much about pesky government regulations when storing hazardous materials [wikipedia.org].
I can use karma today or post (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather post to balance discussion out. Seems a many a negative comments towards Musk.
I've always looked at Musk as the guy that has proved me wrong many times over. When my friend was working for x.com in the 90's, I laughed at internet payments. I was wrong. When Musk said he'd make an electric car when the big 3 dominated the market, I laughed and I was wrong again. When Musk said he's going to start a rocket company and make launching satellites cheaper, again I laughed and was wrong. When Musk said he was going to make reusable rockets, again proved me wrong.
Time and time again Musk has proved he can accomplish what he says he will. At this point when he announced starlink, instead of my usual skepticism, I accepted Musk will do it. If he can build a better city than where I live (San Jose California) I'm not as skeptical as I was in the 90's towards it, now I'm actually intrigued. It should be a decent investment as even a plot of empty land tends to appreciate in value. Something tells me the crap my city pulls won't be pulled in Doge, for instance internet provider monopolies. I wish him the best, and really hopes he can pull it off. My municipality in the least needs to be embarrassed into doing better, and maybe Musk can do that.
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Did you laugh when Elon said he would solve the fake news problems?
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/s... [twitter.com]
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I am sure your reports of the failures of the richest man in the world will affect him greatly.
"Reduced launch costs? Nope space ex launches cost more than the space shuttle"
And that, dear moRon, is an UTTER LIE.
All the easier... (Score:3, Insightful)
No doge ... (Score:2)
...without canals and a Bridge of Sighs.
(and the stink)
When you can't buy them out (Score:4, Interesting)
Turn it into a company town, and run them out with 'legal' city regulations.
White Nikes (Score:2)
Elon could call his new town "Heaven's Gate".
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Elon could call his new town "Heaven's Gate".
Or Musk's Gulch.
Unrealistic (Score:2, Insightful)
These grand plans for a giant city are unrealistic. Look at the conditions. Unlivable heat and humidity all summer, ice storms in the winter that'll knock out power to your life support systems. Huge hurricanes. Floods. Sea level rise will probably drown that area soon.
Terraform Texas first, then we can talk about living there. I suppose he could be talking about a domed city, but who wants to live in a dome where one puncture can kill everyone? Or he could build the city underground, but where's the fun in
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but where's the fun in living your whole life underground?
What's the appeal of ever leaving the basement?
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We already have the engineering for Cat5 houses
See, this is where musk will bring you into the future, your homes are cat5, others have coaxial service, but Elon is going to bring starlink to everyone.
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Starlink is for rural areas where the cost of fiber or terrestrial transmission is prohibitive. Any modern city should have fiber to the home and/or public wifi.
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Dog from dogecoin, not Venetian Doge (Score:2)
Musk also tweeted that the leader of his new city "shall be The Doge," linking to a Wikipedia definition for the Venetian word doge (meaning either "military commander" or "spiritual leader".)
Haven't you people been paying attention? He's just having fun with the press. He is really referring to the dog from dogecoin.
This makes good sense (Score:2)
Dogecoin (Score:2)
Elon accomplishes a lot, with collateral damage (Score:3)
Elon accomplishes a lot but he does leave bodies in his wake. People who buy his product are left holding the bag, and everyone says it's ok because he achieved bigger goals. collateral damage be damned. Let's look at a very clear example. When Tesla released a Model S P85D, Elon claimed it to be a 700hp car. Tesla officially advertised it as 691hp car. Couple of years later, Tesla changed their story to "motors are 691hp, but only if you put those motors in a better car with a better battery, actual hp developed by P85D is 463hp in ideal conditions" - that means the car would have needed a 50% increase in horsepower in order to deliver on the original spec, but the fandom of Elon gave him a pass, because technically anyone with P85D could have paid $80K+ to upgrade to P100 which actually did deliver the spec power. Same thing happened with Tesla AutoPilot - Elon sold AP1 as "it will find you anywhere on private property", while he delivered "it will drive up to 40 feet in a straight line while you hold a dead-man switch". AP2 was supposed to be "full self driving", LOL. But, because he makes progress with successive iteration of the product (which the original buyers do no get, unless they pay to upgrade), the fanboys give him a pass.
So, Elon will likely build his city, with bunch of people screwed along the way, but his fans will rejoice. So what that some people get screwed, right? Someone buys a home at Starbase with the promise of clean air, no problem that their property gets destroyed with rocket fumes, they can buy another clean property any time they wish, getting 25% of the original price as trade-in for the old one, right?