{"id":8295,"date":"2026-05-20T22:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T22:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=8295"},"modified":"2026-05-20T22:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T22:33:07","slug":"spacexs-ipo-to-mint-millionaires-in-poor-texas-border-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=8295","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX\u2019s IPO to mint millionaires in poor Texas border town"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dylan Sloan<\/strong> | Bloomberg<\/p>\n

A 45-minute drive down a narrow highway separates one of America\u2019s poorest border cities from the heart of Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX empire.<\/p>

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A lot has changed in Brownsville, Texas, since the private aerospace giant moved in a decade ago, building a bustling spaceport nearby on the Gulf of Mexico shore. Two French restaurants opened in the city\u2019s dusty downtown, catering to\u00a0the newcomers. The beach long\u00a0favored as a hangout for low-income families now draws Cybertrucks and space tourists\u00a0snapping photos of launch towers.<\/p>\n

But the new money flowing into Brownsville has created both winners and losers \u2014\u00a0a dynamic sure to be turbocharged when SpaceX goes public this summer. Many longtime residents can\u2019t afford the new eateries, which sit alongside\u00a0old\u00a0shops serving\u00a0Mexican customers from Matamoros, just across the Rio Grande. Housing prices \u2014\u00a0still cheap by national standards \u2014\u00a0are rising fast, even as construction ramps up.<\/p>\n

The SpaceX initial public offering, aiming to raise about $75 billion, will mint millionaires among the company\u2019s more than 3,000 local employees. Brownsville civic and business leaders are trying to make that more of a blessing than a curse for their once-sleepy city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a little bit of a shock to the system, but I think it\u2019s stabilized,\u201d said Mayor John Cowen, a sixth-generation resident of the area. \u201cI think people are, for the most part, very appreciative of them being here, and we\u2019re excited about the growth that we\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s particularly hopeful about other industrial projects coming to the area in SpaceX\u2019s wake \u2014\u00a0something he attributes\u00a0to the company\u2019s \u201caura\u201d of innovation and success.\u00a0In 2023, construction began on a 984-acre liquefied natural gas export terminal near\u00a0the Port of Brownsville. President Donald Trump this March announced the development of a $300-billion oil refinery at the port, which could bring 500 full-time jobs.\u00a0There\u2019s even talk of a possible\u00a0shipbuilding facility to make autonomous vessels for the US Navy.<\/p>\n

Such projects would have seemed pipe dreams twenty years ago.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing time for the city of Brownsville to be known as a place for investment, for innovation, for opportunity,\u201d Cowen said. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment for this story.<\/p>

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Occupying the state\u2019s southernmost tip, Brownsville has seen its share of booms and busts. During the Civil War, a\u00a0Union ban on cotton from Confederate states prompted growers to ship their cotton to Brownsville, where it was moved across the border, rebranded as Mexican\u00a0and then sold to the North as well as international clients. The scheme made fortunes for a small merchant class.<\/p>\n

A century later, Brownsville became a shopping destination for wealthy Mexicans as that country\u2019s economy liberalized. Traces of the\u00a0era still linger in faded downtown storefronts and the El Jardin Hotel \u2014\u00a0once the city\u2019s swankiest establishment, then for years a vacant relic, now converted to affordable housing.<\/p>\n

Brownsville\u2019s fortunes turned again in 2014, when SpaceX broke ground on its launch facility at a beachfront site nearby.\u00a0Beyond\u00a0the allure of cheap, open land, it seemed an odd fit. The satellite and rocket company, founded by Musk in 2002, was based near Los Angeles International Airport, in a Southern California job market brimming with young engineers and aerospace veterans. Brownsville, in contrast, ranked as the country\u2019s poorest city at the time, with 36% of its residents\u00a0living below the poverty level.<\/p>\n

But Brownsville\u2019s southern location placed it relatively close to the equator, which would give rockets launching eastward an extra energy boost from Earth\u2019s rotation. And the gulf lay to the east, allowing rockets to take off over unpopulated water.<\/p>

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As the company built out its spaceport, its employees slowly moved\u00a0in. The process accelerated in 2021 when Musk posted a message\u00a0to his millions of social media followers, urging people interested in joining SpaceX to move to the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike a light switch \u2014\u00a0that tweet goes out, and I\u2019m getting calls from Oregon, from Washington state, from Northern California,\u201d said Bob Torres, a lifetime Brownsville resident and real estate broker. \u201cHis tweet had that power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the new arrivals even snapped up big\u00a0homes in the countryside that locals previously associated with the drug trade, Torres said\u00a0\u2014\u00a0gigantic houses surrounded by dilapidated properties. \u201cBack in the day, when I would see that, that would mean that\u2019s a cartel guy,\u201d said Torres, 67. \u201cNow, that house is a SpaceX-related guy, or woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

The newcomers, however, didn\u2019t mingle much with longtime residents. And as the base took shape, becoming the company\u2019s official headquarters in 2024, more of the SpaceX employees\u00a0started living by the spaceport itself rather than in town. Last May, they even voted to incorporate the land around the facility as its own city, called Starbase. The company\u00a0also owns a Boeing 737 that\u00a0it uses to shuttle employees back and forth between Brownsville and California multiple times a week, according to Laura Sparks, an administrator at Sun Valley Aviation, a service provider at the local\u00a0airport.<\/p>

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As a result, much of the money SpaceX is investing in South Texas isn\u2019t visible in Brownsville itself.\u00a0Musk in 2021 donated $20 million to the Cameron County school district and $10 million to Brownsville revitalization efforts. But many downtown storefronts, lining the ground floors of hacienda-style buildings, remain empty.<\/p>\n

Those in use include stores selling inexpensive clothing and household goods to Mexican shoppers. A blood plasma donation center across from City Hall attracts a steady flow of people\u00a0who emerge with blue bandages on their forearms. Small groups of buskers carry guitars and accordions from one restaurant to another, playing a song or two and collecting tips.<\/p>\n

And yet, a handful of businesses have sprung up to serve SpaceX employees and tourists who come to watch rocket launches.\u00a0Michael Limas, a financial planner who works with multiple SpaceX clients, started a craft cocktail lounge called Las Ramblas with his brother in 2019. Since then, he\u2019s opened other\u00a0restaurants downtown, including the French-inspired Le\u00a0R\u00eave.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get an influx of transplants coming in who have more fluency, maybe a higher expectation of cuisine, and it\u2019s something that we felt there was an opportunity in the market,\u201d said Limas. \u201cFrom an economic perspective, there\u2019s a unique opportunity with launches that are viewed like micro Super Bowls.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not all of the restaurants are in the locals\u2019 price range. And in a city where 94% of residents are\u00a0Latino, the ethnic and racial diversity of the diners is a giveaway that they\u2019re new, or just visiting. \u201cTo go out to a $300 dinner \u2014\u00a0that just doesn\u2019t happen,\u201d Torres said. \u201cThe normal Brownsvillian could not afford to go there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thousands of visitors now pack local hotels to see SpaceX\u00a0rocket launches. H\u0227kon Bortheim and Martina Lupocchino, tourists from Italy, chose to visit Starbase for H\u0227kon\u2019s first ever trip to the US in April\u00a0\u2014\u00a0even though\u00a0their visit wasn\u2019t going to overlap with a launch. They wanted to see the facility anyway, despite the fact that\u00a0SpaceX doesn\u2019t provide public tours or even restrooms for visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s f***ing awesome,\u201d said Bortheim, as he studied a launch tower from the side of an\u00a0adjacent highway. \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t know what else to do in Brownsville,\u201d<\/p>\n

Businesses is also picking up at the\u00a0Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport. Each SpaceX launch brings a surge in private aircraft traffic,\u00a0said\u00a0Sparks, whose company\u00a0operates fuel pumps and hangar space and is upgrading both to meet demand. Sun Valley has also seen rising\u00a0enrollment in its\u00a0flight school, as SpaceX employees take up flying as a hobby.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust in the past two\u00a0years onsite in Brownsville, we\u2019ve noticed a big increase in traffic, mostly due to SpaceX,\u201d Sparks said.<\/p>\n

One of the company\u2019s biggest economic impacts, however, has been on the housing market \u2014\u00a0in ways both good and bad.<\/p>\n

Local developers are scrambling to keep up with demand. Joel Loera, who runs an industrial staffing company, began developing residential real estate several years ago and is finishing construction on a subdivision a short drive from Starbase, with another planned across the street. More than 80% of the buyers for his properties have ties to SpaceX or the other new industrial projects popping up in the area, he estimated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a no-brainer,\u201d Loera said. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting for everybody in the community. You get both sides, right? But I think overall, deep down inside, you know that it\u2019s a good thing for the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

The flip side Loera referenced is the price.\u00a0From 2014 to 2025, the median sale price for Cameron County homes more than doubled, rising\u00a0125% to $254,000, according to\u00a0data from Texas A&M University\u2019s Real Estate Research Center.\u00a0As of last year, 37% of homes that changed hands sold for more than $300,000, up from 8% in 2014.\u00a0 Those prices are a steal for most newcomers\u00a0but threaten to squeeze\u00a0out longtime residents whose salaries haven\u2019t kept up.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s rent has gone up \u2014\u00a0my rent is up by\u00a0$200 a month,\u201d\u00a0said Bekah Hinojosa, a local artist and community organizer, who said SpaceX employees are buying up Brownsville\u2019s nicest\u00a0neighborhoods. \u201cThey\u2019re also flipping houses and turning them into Airbnbs.\u201d She\u00a0is part of a small but active group of local\u00a0residents and organizations who have been loudly protesting SpaceX\u2019s expansion.<\/p>

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