Amid Data Center Backlash, Musk Bets Big Again: SpaceX (SPCX.US) Plans $24 Billion Computing Center and Gas-Fired Power Plant in Texas

According to a public hearing notice posted on the Starbase website, SpaceX (SPCX.US) plans to build, own, and operate a gas-fired power plant and a supercomputing facility in its company town of Starbase, Texas. The documents show that first-phase investment in the project is expected to be US$24 billion, and the notice says construction may be carried out in multiple phases and may include future expansion. SpaceX has applied for a property tax abatement for the project. City commissioners will consider approving the tax abatement and development agreement at a meeting on December 9. The plan sends the latest signal that Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is pushing SpaceX toward full vertically integrated industrial chains built around natural gas. Natural gas is currently the main power-generation fuel that data center developers rely on to ensure projects can be commissioned and operated; at the same time, SpaceX also plans to use deeply purified, cryogenically processed natural gas to fuel some rocket launch missions. As early as September this year, SpaceX proposed building its own gas pipeline in Florida to deliver fuel to Starship rockets at Cape Canaveral. The company is also recruiting natural gas traders at Starbase and Cape Canaveral, no longer relying solely on external logistics providers, in order to match growing fuel and power demand. Starbase was formally incorporated as a city in 2025, and hundreds of SpaceX employees and their families now live there. The announcement shows that the proposed project is located within Starbase city limits, covers 444 acres, and lies east of Brownsville. Surging power demand from data centers and new factories has driven up demand for construction of gas-fired power plants, and Musk has long championed the vertical integration model. SpaceX also plans to build a supporting gas-fired power plant to supply power to a large semiconductor manufacturing base it is jointly developing with Tesla, Inc. (TSLA.US) in Grimes County outside Houston. Building its own power plant would allow SpaceX to avoid waiting years to connect the project to the Texas main grid. The notice did not specify the size or duration of the abatement, nor did it provide details on the power plant's installed capacity or the scale of the computing business. However, Musk's plan to deploy this supercomputing center and supporting gas infrastructure may face resistance. At present, opposition to data centers is intensifying across the United States: after the midterm elections, Democrats control the U.S. Congress and the Texas governor's office, and some Democrats campaigned on pausing new projects; incoming Texas Democratic Governor Gina Hinojosa made controlling new data center construction part of her campaign platform. Protests have erupted in many places across the United States over rising electricity prices and environmental disputes involving data centers, including protests targeting SpaceX's data center cluster in Memphis. It is understood that voters rejected data center-related measures in 40 of 41 local referendums.