Elon Musk says he’s hiring in Texas, asks people to move to Austin, Brownsville

By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is asking people to move to Texas to work for his companies.

Musk tweeted this week that Starbase, his SpaceX community located near South Padre Island, is hiring.

The SpaceX South Texas launch site, which first broke ground in September 2014, is a rocket production facility, test site, and spaceport located at Boca Chica approximately 20 miles east of Brownsville, Texas, on the Gulf Coast. The South Texas Launch Site is SpaceX’s fourth active suborbital launch facility, and first private facility. 

By March of last year, SpaceX had over 500 employees working at the Boca Chica site, Ars Technica reported. Four shifts work 24/7 — in 12-hour shifts with four days on and three days off followed by three days on and four off — enabling the continuous manufacturing of his Starship flight rocket with workers and equipment specialized to each task of serial Starship production. 

According to a 2014 Brownsville Economic Development Council report, the facility was projected to generate $85 million worth of economic activity in Brownsville and eventually generate roughly $51 million in annual salaries from new jobs created by 2024.

Part of this money is coming directly from Musk. Musk tweeted that he is donating $20 million to schools in Cameron County and $10 million to the city of Brownsville for revitalization efforts, both of which are near SpaceX.

“Please consider moving to Starbase or greater Brownsville/South Padre area in Texas & encourage friends to do so! SpaceX’s hiring needs for engineers, technicians, builders & essential support personnel of all kinds are growing rapidly,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday. “Starbase will grow by several thousand people over the next year or two.”

Musk is one of the latest billionaires and entrepreneurs to leave California and relocate to Texas.

Tesla, Musk’s electric car company, is also hiring, seeking to fill hundreds of jobs in the Austin area. Its gigafactory is currently under construction in east Travis County, and once completed and fully operational, it is expected to hire 5,000 people. Tesla is hiring in the areas of manufacturing, construction and facilities, engineering and IT, sales and customer support, and human resources.

The Austin-area production plant will build Tesla’s all-electric Cybertruck and Model 3/Model Y vehicles. The Tesla Cybertruck will be made of advanced alloy, which has been described as “the most iconic ‘Green’ pickup truck.”

Last July when announcing the new production facility site, Gov. Greg Abbott said, “Tesla is one of the most exciting and innovative companies in the world” and would bring over $1 billion in capital investment to the region.

Musk said the new site “will be stunning. It’s right by the Colorado River. It will have a boardwalk. … It will be an ecological paradise. It will be open to the public as well.”