SpaceX’s $24B Starbase Power, Compute Plan Faces Hearing

SpaceX puts the initial phase of a proposed Starbase power-and-compute project at about $24 billion in capital investment, according to a city notice.

The Starbase City Commission will consider the request at a public hearing on Wednesday, Dec. 9, weighing a property-tax abatement under Chapter 312 of the Texas Tax Code and a related economic-development agreement under Chapter 380 of the Local Government Code.

The notice names Space Exploration Technologies Corp. as property owner and applicant. It says SpaceX “proposes to construct, own, and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility.” The project may run through multiple phases and include future expansions.

The $24 billion figure covers initial-phase investment, not a stated final project cost. Nor does the filing give a construction start date.

Where would the project go?

The proposed site is an approximately 444-acre tract just east of Brownsville, between Boca Chica Boulevard and the Port of Brownsville. The parcel, listed as Cameron County property ID 171887, sits in the Cameron County Enterprise Zone.

The land already counts as a reinvestment zone for tax-abatement purposes.

Control changed before the hearing. On Aug. 29, Brownsville commissioners unanimously voted to remove the roughly 444 acres from city jurisdiction at SpaceX’s request. Starbase, the city incorporated around SpaceX’s Starship factory and launch site, now controls the tract.

In a separate agreement, SpaceX agreed to provide up to $220 million for regional water and wastewater projects, the RGV Business Journal reported. SpaceX expects eventual water demand of about 2 million gallons per day.

At the time of the transfer, RGV Business Journal said SpaceX’s intended use remained unclear. SemiAnalysis said in September that SpaceX planned a data center there, but SpaceX did not confirm that report. The hearing notice is the first public document to state the proposed use.

What has not been disclosed?

The notice does not identify the computing customer, power-plant capacity, turbine count, chip count, job commitment or construction schedule. It also does not say why SpaceX wants dedicated generation or whether the site would connect to the state grid.

Social-media posts have circulated figures of 35 turbines and 748 megawatts, but MLQ could not find those numbers in the city notice or a state air permit. The turbine count and generating capacity remain unconfirmed.

That gap carries commercial weight because Texas has tightened grid access this year. On Aug. 3, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered a pause on new data centers moving through the grid operator’s connection process pending an audit.

Gina Hinojosa, the Democrat who won the governor’s race on Nov. 3 after campaigning against AI data centers, has since pledged to freeze data-center approvals. MLQ also reported that she pulled talks of a SpaceX land sale.

What changes the compute picture?

Starbase is the second large data-center site tied to SpaceX in one week, after MLQ reported the company is behind a proposed 6 GW campus in Cochise County, Arizona. The Starbase notice offers no comparable capacity figure.

MLQ also reported that Goldman Sachs and Apollo are selling slices of a $40 billion Nvidia chip lease to investors. It said SpaceX absorbed xAI in a stock swap in February and went public in June.

Part of SpaceX’s existing compute is already rented out. SpaceX’s S-1 says Anthropic “has agreed to pay us $1.25 billion per month through May 2029” for compute at its Colossus clusters, and either party may end the agreement on 90 days’ notice.

Musk said in May that the arrangement is a 180-day lease with 90-day mutual cancellation thereafter, and that the shorter term was SpaceX’s request. Anthropic is also arranging its own power: it paid $3.4 billion for 1.7 GW of Caterpillar gas generators, the Financial Times reported.

The disclosed compute economics are firmer than the Starbase proposal. Anthropic supplies a named customer, a monthly price and a termination framework; the proposed Texas site supplies none of those terms.

The Dec. 9 hearing will put the $24 billion first phase on the record, but until turbine, chip, grid and customer details emerge, Starbase’s power capacity and near-term compute economics remain undefined.