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Elon Musk’s Secret Texas Company Town · Elon Musk Podcast

0:00
Somewhere between 300 and 620 acres of land just southeast of
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the Tesla Giga factory in Texas was recently bought by this very
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mysterious entity called Horse Ranch LLC.
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And roughly around that same time, you had another entity
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called Gapped Bass LLC quietly buying up 73 acres in Bastrop
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County, which that second plot eventually ballooned into a
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massive 3500 acre portfolio. Yeah, And if you just pull the
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state filings on those names, the mystery dissolves really
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quickly. Horse Ranch LLC is managed by
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Jared Birchall, right? And that's Elon Musk's personal
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wealth manager. He's also the CEO of Neuralink.
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Then Gap Pass. That one shares an exact
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physical address with the Boring Company.
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So we are definitely not looking at just some random Texas cattle
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barons here. We are looking at the foundation
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of a completely vertically integrated corporate ecosystem
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stretching basically from Austin all the way down to the Gulf
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Coast. Exactly.
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And the question that we have to ask here is fundamental.
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Are we just looking at a business consolidating its
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headquarters so things are more efficient, or are we actually
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witnessing the construction of a private industrial sovereignty,
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like a a closed loop system where one single entity controls
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the land, the labor, the utilities, and even the schools?
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Well, Horse Ranch and Gap best certainly sound like names that
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were designed in a lab specifically to be ignored by
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people. Oh absolutely.
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That is the entire strategy. It actually goes by the name
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accession. The accession.
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Yeah, that's the name of the family office structure managing
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all this wealth. And they use this very specific
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administrative Nexus. It's Seventeen O 1 Directors
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Blvd. in Austin and they use it for essentially privacy hygiene
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because in high stakes real estate you have to do this.
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If a seller in rural Texas knows that Elon Musk is the guy trying
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to buy their empty field, the asking price instantly triples.
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It's the billionaire premium. So by routing everything through
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these obscure sounding LLC's and this one administrative hub in
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Austin, they just mask the buyers true identity.
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Right. And let them assemble these
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massive contiguous tracts of land for things they called
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Project Amazing and the Snail Brook development.
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And they did it without the public immediately catching on
2:06
to the scale of what was happening.
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Because I mean, if you buy 1 dirt plot, nobody cares.
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You buy 20 connected plots through the same LLC and people
2:15
start asking questions. Right.
2:16
And Project Amazing is just, I love that they put it right out
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there with the naming, but the integration here, it goes way
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deeper than just sharing a mailroom.
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Oh yeah, it's shared human capital.
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So take Gapped Bass LLC for instance.
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The registered agent listed on the paperwork for that entity is
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Adam Pashan. He is the corporate controller
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for the Boring Company. OK, so the literal person
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managing the day-to-day finances for the tunnelling company is
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the exact same person signing the paperwork for the land
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acquisition. Yeah, the finance leadership,
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the real estate people, the engineering guys, it is all the
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same incredibly small circle of people wearing different hats.
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Which really limits the amount of internal friction they have.
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They don't have to wait for three different corporate boards
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to agree on a land purchase. Exactly.
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It completely streamlines the massive things they're actually
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building on all that dirt. You brought up Snail Brook
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earlier. The internal plans for that
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describe it as a utopia along the Colorado River.
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A utopia. That's the literal vision.
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Snail Brook sits in Bastrop County, and the whole idea is to
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create dedicated housing specifically for the employees
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of the Boring Company, SpaceX, and Tesla.
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They're actually collaborating with Lennar, the huge home
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builder, to put up 110 detached homes right now.
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Yeah, I was looking at the plat maps for that area and you've
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got streets with names like Boring Blvd., Water, Jetway,
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Cutter, Head Crossing. They're literally building the
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corporate branding into the pavement.
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But this is also where they're hitting a major friction point.
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Because you can call it a utopia on paper, but historically
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speaking, we already have a name for this kind of setup.
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It's a company town. Right, like Pullman in Illinois
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or Hershey in Pennsylvania back in the day.
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Exactly where the guy signing your paycheck is also your
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landlord and. Effectively your mayor.
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Right, but that 19th century model is colliding with some
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very 21st century realities, specifically plumbing.
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The plumbing. Yeah, you can draw up this grand
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sci-fi utopia, but at the end of the day, thousands of people
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still need to flush the toilet. Gaft Bass LLC had to apply for a
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state permit to discharge 142,500 gallons of treated
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wastewater per day. Wow.
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And that wastewater goes straight into the Colorado
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River. Wait, hold on, 142,000 gallons
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every single day? Every day?
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I have to imagine the locals out in Bastrop, who mostly moved out
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there to get away from the sprawl of Austin, were not
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thrilled about that at. All they were furious.
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Bastrop really prides itself on being rural.
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It's quiet, it's very distinct from city life.
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And suddenly you have this massive industrial and
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residential complex wanting to dump a literal lake of effluent
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into their river. It sparked this huge community
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backlash. Wait back up for a second, is
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Snellbrook actually a physical thing right now or is this just
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like a rendering on a leaked PDF that everyone is getting mad
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about? Oh, no, it's happening right
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now. If you drive out there, you'll
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see mobile homes are already on the site.
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There's a massive warehouse built.
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The Bastrop city manager actually went on record.
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Sylvia Carrillo Trevino, she indicated that this development
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could eventually grow tenfold from what it is today.
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Yeah. So we are talking about
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potentially thousands of employees eventually living in
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company housing on company dirt. And it changed the whole dynamic
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of the region because it isn't just residential housing
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anymore. Bastrop is turning into this
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wild operational nerve center. I was reading the filings about
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the new headquarters for X. They formally moved the HQ from
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that famous Art Deco building in downtown San Francisco to a
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warehouse in Bastrop. Yeah, 865 FM twelve O 9.
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It is the most nondescript industrial warehouse you can
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imagine, and it sits right next to something called the Boring
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Bodega. The boring bodega so you can
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grab a bag of chips, code the back end of a global social
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media platform and then check on a multi ton tunneling machine
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all in the exact same parking lot.
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That is the mini hub dynamic they are building.
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You have X operating there. The Boring Company is actively
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testing their tunnels under the ground there, and SpaceX is
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totally doubling down on that exact same location.
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They just filed the paperwork for an $8 million expansion to
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their Bastrop facility. OK.
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It has 80,000 square feet to their footprint, and that's set
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to finish up in early 2026. And they manufacture the
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Starlink Internet kits right there in Bastrop, too.
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Correct. So what this does is it creates
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this completely seamless flow of hardware and talent.
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Legally speaking, SpaceX, The Boring Company X, they are
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distinct corporate entities, but operationally, in this one Texas
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hub, they're completely fused together.
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An engineer could theoretically clock out of the ex office, walk
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across the street to the Boring Company site to observe a tunnel
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test and grab lunch at the company bodega without ever
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stepping foot outside the corporate ecosystem.
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That opens up an unbelievable efficiency advantage.
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You have zero travel time, instant collaboration across
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completely different industries. But if Bastrop is the
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operational hub for the day-to-day stuff, South Texas
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down in Boca Chica is where the scale gets almost hard to
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comprehend. We really need to talk about
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Starbase because unlike Snailbrook, which is just a real
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estate development right now, Starbase is a legally recognized
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city. It is as of May 2025, Starbase
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officially incorporated as a municipality.
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Which is wild because usually a city forms because a community
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of people already exists there and they want a government.
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Here the company existed first, bought the land, and then
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declared itself a city. Who even voted for that
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incorporation? Well this is where the closed
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loop nature of this whole empire becomes crystal clear.
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The voters who actually went to the ballot box and approved the
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cities incorporation were primarily SpaceX employees who
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live. There, So the employees voted to
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turn their literal workplace into a taxpayer municipality.
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Essentially, yes. And the guy they elected as
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mayor, Bobby Peden, he is literally a vice president at
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SpaceX. The mayor of the city is an
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active VP at the corporation that employs the voters.
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That completely blurs the line between a corporate hierarchy
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and actual civic governance. You can't even see the line
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anymore. It's invisible.
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And the consequence of that is they can manage the physical
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land incredibly aggressively. They do not have to fight some
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hostile City Council for a tricky zoning change when they
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literally are the City Council. Right, I saw some documents
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regarding land swaps down there too.
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They aren't just buying private ranches anymore.
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No, they've outgrown that. They are actively trying to
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expand their footprint by negotiating directly with the
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state and the federal government.
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So initially, they proposed swapping 43 acres of Boca Chica
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State Park. Which is public.
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Land. Public State Park land.
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Yeah, they wanted to swap that for 477 acres they bought
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somewhere else. And now there is active
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discussion of a massive new exchange with the Trump
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administration that involves the Laguna Atascosa National
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Wildlife. Refuge They are trying to trade
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a National Wildlife Refuge to expand a rocket launch facility.
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It just shows you the level of leverage they have now.
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They are knocking on farmers doors, offering cash, they are
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negotiating sovereign territory with the federal government.
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But pushing outward like that comes with some serious
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friction, especially environmentally.
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You brought up the deluge system in our prep notes.
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This relates directly to the Starship rockets, right?
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Yes. So when Starship launches, it is
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the most powerful rocket ever built.
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It generates immense heat and acoustic energy.
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Just brutal force. And to protect the concrete
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launchpad from literally melting into slag, they use this massive
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water deluge system. It basically sprays A phenomenal
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amount of fresh water directly under the engines to suppress
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the heat and the sound waves. And the environmental regulators
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had a huge problem with this. Yeah, the EPA ended up finding
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SpaceX $148,000. Wait $148,000 for a company
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launching A skyscraper into orbit?
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That is a rounding error. It's a parking ticket.
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Oh, financially it is completely negligible to them.
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But the actual dispute behind the fine is really fascinating
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because it perfectly highlights the regulatory friction they
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face, the EPA and the TCEQ, which is the Texas Commission on
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Environmental Quality. They argued that once that fresh
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water touches the heavy industrial equipment and mixes
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with the raw rocket exhaust, it instantly becomes industrial
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wastewater. Right, because it picks up
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contaminant. Exactly.
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It picks up mercury, heavy metals, all sorts of extreme
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stuff. So what was the SpaceX defense
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for just dumping it? SpaceX pushed back and argued it
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was literally just drinking water.
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They basically said we are just spraying perfectly safe potable
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water on the concrete, so why in the world do we need a
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specialized wastewater permit? Well it's not potable after it
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gets blasted by a super heated rocket engine.
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Right. The regulator didn't buy it, but
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look at the pattern here. They operated the Delu system
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without the proper permit. They got caught, they paid a
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fine that means nothing to their bottom line, and then they just
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kept operating the exact same way while they formally applied
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for the new permit. It's a very deliberate move fast
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and pay the fines later approach to dealing with the state.
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Which works beautifully when you have the cash reserves to just
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treat a federal fine as a standard operating expense.
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But Speaking of the money, let's look at how this entire empire
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is actually being funded. Because for all the talk of
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rugged, self-sufficient private enterprise, there is a
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staggering amount of public money oiling these gears.
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A. Truly massive amount.
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You really have to look at the tax incentives to understand the
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scale. Historically speaking, Tesla
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benefited hugely from a Texas policy called Chapter 313.
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That's the huge school district tax break program, right?
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Right. It basically allowed massive
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companies to artificially limit the appraised value of their
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property specifically for school district maintenance taxes.
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So before that program officially expired in Texas, the
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Giga, Texas deal they struck at the Dell Valley School District
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saved them an estimated $46.4 million. $46,000,000 that was
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effectively taken out of potential public school district
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revenue. Well, the counter argument, and
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this is the entire reason Texas legislators created the program,
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is that a facility like Giga Texas wouldn't get built there
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without the incentive in the 1st place.
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Yeah, so the state logic is getting a little bit of tax
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revenue and thousands of jobs is vastly better than getting 0.
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Sure, but chapter 313 is gone. Now the state let it.
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So the Musk ecosystem just shifted tactics.
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Now they are heavily utilizing something called the Texas
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Enterprise Zone. How?
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Does that one work? It's a state level designation
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designed to help distressed or economically challenged areas.
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SpaceX actually nominated its GB project down South for what the
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state calls a triple jumbo project designation.
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A triple jumbo project that genuinely sounds like a
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promotional meal deal at a drive through.
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It really does. But in the incredibly dry world
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of Texas tax law, a triple jumbo project is reserved exclusively
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for developments that are investing over $250 million.
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And if the state approves that designation, it allows the
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company to claim millions of dollars in state sales tax
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refunds. So they are effectively pulling
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every available lever of the state tax code, whether it's
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sales tax or property tax, to heavily subsidized their own
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private expansion. So let's just recap the stack of
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advantages they've built so far. They secure the massive public
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tax breaks to build the facilities.
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They assemble the raw land, which they then control via
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their own incorporated city government.
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They physically build the housing for the workers.
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But there is one major resource they might actually be running
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out of, and it's the one thing you really cannot negotiate your
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way into producing out of thin air power.
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Yeah, electricity is the newest and perhaps the hardest physical
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constraint on this whole system because we aren't just talking
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about powering robotic arms to Weld cars together anymore.
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We are talking about raw compute.
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The AI supercomputers. Yes, between Tesla's Cortex
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supercomputer cluster up a Giga, Texas and the XAI Colossus
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supercomputer, the sheer energy demand is hitting gigawatts
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scales. Hold on a second gigawatts like
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plural? Plural.
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It is an almost incomprehensible amount of power draw.
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And the problem for the state isn't just the sheer amount of
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power they need, it's the erratic behavior of that power
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draw. A car factory usually has a very
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steady, predictable power load, but AI data centers like these,
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they can swing from maximum MW usage to absolute minimum usage
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almost instantly, depending on the exact training workload
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running at that millisecond. And the Texas grid ear Coty is
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not exactly world renowned for being a rock solid piece of
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infrastructure. Precisely.
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These massive instant swings in power demand create severe
14:40
frequency issues that threaten the stability of the entire
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state grid. If a data center drops a GW of
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load instantly, the grid frequency violently spikes.
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If they suddenly demand a GW, the frequency drops.
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It's incredibly destabilizing. Just to give you a sense of the
14:55
physical scale of what we were talking about here, the Cortex
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facility alone includes these massive water cooling systems
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and 210 air cooled substations. Wait, 210 electrical substations
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just for one single facility? Just for Cortex, it is an
15:11
industrial drain on the state's resources that is functionally
15:14
comparable to plugging a mid sized American city directly
15:18
into the grid. So you have a totally private
15:20
entity consuming public resources like water and
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electricity at a literal municipal scale.
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It really just circles entirely back to that core idea of the
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closed loop. We've covered the workplaces,
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the corporate housing, the city governance, and the raw power.
15:33
But there is one final piece in the source material that really
15:35
cements this whole company town reality for me to kids.
15:39
You're talking about the Ad Astra school.
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Yeah, this school is located right in Bastrop.
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It sits on a 40 acre site directly within the corporate
15:47
compound. It does, and the curriculum they
15:49
designed is highly specific. It focuses intensely on STEM
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robotics and artificial intelligence, and this is for
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children aged 6 to 9. So it's an educational pipeline.
16:00
Completely. It uses these Montessori aligned
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teaching methods, but it is distinctly and unapologetically
16:07
corporate aligned. And if you look at the
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leadership structure of the school, it circles all the way
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back to the very first thing we talked about.
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Let me guess, Jared Burchill? Jared Burchill, the exact same
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man running the Accession Family Office, managing the obscure
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LLC's, buying the land and overseeing the personal wealth,
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is also the CEO of the elementary school.
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Wow, so an employee can live in a house built by the company in
16:30
Snailbrook, They wake up and drive a company Tesla to work at
16:33
SpaceX or the Boring Company. They work all day on industrial
16:37
projects heavily funded by state tax incentives.
16:39
And then they drive home and drop their kid off at a school
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run by their bosses financial manager.
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It is total societal integration.
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What we are looking at is so much more than just a corporate
16:50
relocation strategy or supply and chain efficiency.
16:54
It is the literal establishment of a parallel social and
16:58
industrial infrastructure. They are completely bypassing
17:01
traditional municipal friction. They don't have to deal with
17:04
annoying zoning boards, local school boards, or utility
17:07
commissions because they were just building their own
17:09
sovereign alternatives from scratch.
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It's basically a Texan hegemony. That is a really good way to put
17:14
it, actually. It feels like a direct return to
17:17
the era of the 19th century industrial barons, but just
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equipped with orbital rockets and artificial intelligence
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instead of steel mills and railroads.
17:26
So as we wrap this up, what is the ultimate take away here for
17:29
you? Because looking at all these
17:31
pieces together, this feels significantly bigger than just
17:33
one very wealthy guy buying land in Texas.
17:35
It's. Much bigger.
17:37
As these corporate ecosystems continue to grow large enough to
17:40
employ their own mayors, build their own schools, and strain
17:43
statewide utility infrastructures, we really have
17:46
to ask a hard question. At what point do these entities
17:50
cease to be traditional companies and effectively become
17:53
private governments? And if they actually are private
17:56
governments operating inside the US, who are they fundamentally
17:59
accountable to? I think that is exactly the
18:01
question we are going to be watching play out over the next
18:04
decade because right now the answer to who they are
18:06
accountable to seems to be the shareholders.
18:09
And a shareholder is a very, very different thing than a
18:12
voter. Very different.
18:13
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