SpaceX plans to construct, own and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility at its company town in Starbase, Texas, according to a notice of a public hearing on the city’s website.
The estimated investment for the initial phase of the project is $24 billion. The city commissioner will consider the approval of a tax abatement and development agreement at a Dec. 9 meeting.
The proposal is the latest sign that CEO Elon Musk is seeking to vertically integrate SpaceX’s value chain for natural gas, the primary power-plant fuel that data center developers are using to get the facilities up and running. SpaceX is also looking to fuel some of its rocket launches with a super-chilled and purified form of the gas.
In September, SpaceX proposed building its own pipeline in Florida to transport gas to its Starship rockets in Cape Canaveral. The company 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.
Starbase, incorporated in 2025, is home to several hundred SpaceX employees and their families. The proposed project is located within the corporate limits of Starbase on a 444-acre tract east of the city of Brownsville, according to the public notice.
Surging power needs from data centers and new factories have driven demand for gas plants, and Musk has long been a proponent for vertical integration. SpaceX also plans to build its own gas-fired power plant to support the massive semiconductor manufacturing facility it’s developing in Grimes County, outside of Houston, with Tesla Inc.
Musk’s prospects for getting a “super-compute facility” and associated gas infrastructure online could face headwinds from Texas’ incoming Democratic governor Gina Hinojosa, who ran in part on a promise to tame new data center construction. Rising power prices and concerns around the environmental impact of the facilities have triggered protests around the country, including ones against SpaceXSI’s data center complex in Memphis.
Copyright 2026 Bloomberg.
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