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Texas

SpaceX starts construction outside of Austin

The 521,000 sf building will rise across from Musk’s the Boring Company

Construction has begun on the new facility on Walker-Watson Road in Bastrop and Elon Musk (Google Maps, Getty)
Construction has begun on the new facility on Walker-Watson Road in Bastrop and Elon Musk (Google Maps, Getty)

While Elon Musk continues his Twitter takeover, SpaceX is moving into Bastrop, about 30 miles southwest of Austin.

The spacecraft engineering company began construction on a 521,000-square-foot building that will rise on a rural property across from another Musk-owned business, the Boring Company, the San Antonio Express-News reported. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation has dubbed the building “Project Echo.”

SpaceX’s plans for the property aren’t yet known. Musk’s Boring Company is a tunnel-digging company that has been trying to get city approval to build a massive underground highway that would connect Austin and San Antonio.

In a video Musk posted to his Twitter account, he and one of his children visited the new SpaceX site and showed a massive tunnel-boring machine, called Prufrock II, emerging from the ground at the Boring Company. The video showed the machine tunneling 100 yards across the street to the new SpaceX site.

Musk issued memos in June to Tesla and SpaceX staff demanding everyone work from the office full time or find a new job. The world’s richest man wrote that “remote work is no longer acceptable,” and added on Twitter that those who think offices are antiquated should “pretend to work somewhere else.”

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In the first of two memos, Musk wrote, “Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla.”

Musk also ended Twitter’s remote work policy this week, shortly after taking control of the social media outlet. The revised rules dictate employees need to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week, unless Musk grants his personal blessing otherwise.

The edict flies in the face of the company’s previous policies, which granted employees the freedom to work from anywhere, permanently, at the start of the pandemic. It’s the latest change Musk has rolled out in a tumultuous two weeks since he closed a deal to buy the social media giant for $44 billion.

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— Victoria Pruitt

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Elon MuskSpaceX