The South Texas city of Brownsville has approved the disannexation of 444 acres of land in a rushed deal with billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX that displayed the “lopsided power dynamics” between the municipality and the galactic Goliath, news site myRGV reports.
The purpose of the land grab is still officially a mystery. SpaceX declined to state how it plans to use the land, according to media reports. However, activists say there’s evidence the company plans to use the property to build a water-hungry data center and gas-fueled power plant in the resource-strained region.
Opponents of the transaction raised the alarm over the company’s tactics, which they said were so secretive that even the mayor and city commissioners didn’t know the details of a deal they unanimously approved during a nighttime meeting last Saturday, myRGV reports.
SpaceX, an aerospace company valued at $1.9 trillion, asked for the property near Brownsville’s port to be removed from city limits and the municipality’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. That means the city, which has a population of nearly 200,000, surrendered its zoning, permitting, ordinance and taxation authority over the property — without knowing why.
As part of the transaction, SpaceX will invest up to $220 million in Brownsville’s water supply, but the offer, called Project Quantum, was only on the table if city leaders accepted the deal that day, according to media reports. Brownsville officials cited the city’s water scarcity as their reason for approving the deal.
“We put the residents first tonight,” Mayor John Cowen Jr. told the Brownsville Herald. “We look at this as a very historic moment for the city. Water is a huge issue in South Texas and around the state, and this decision today will ensure that Brownsville be a place for future generations to live, and for our continued growth as a city.”
At the same time, the company offered little explanation for why it requested the disannexation.
SpaceX executive Sheila McCorkle, Vice President of Starship Legal and Regulatory, was present at the hearing and said the business would take the matter to court if need be, according to activists who attended the hearing.
A ‘rush’ but ‘the reality’
City commissioners requested 72 hours to deliberate but McCorkle denied their request, saying the deal would soon be off the table, according to a report by myRGV.
“I did not feel comfortable with the pace here. I made that statement to SpaceX privately and publicly,” Brownsville Mayor John Cowen said at the meeting, as reported by local CBS affiliate KRGV. “We wanted to, at the very least, move this to Tuesday.”
“I appreciate it’s a rush, but it’s the reality,” McCorkle said.
Community members spoke against the deal during Saturday’s meeting, even though city commissioners themselves hadn’t seen the Municipal Annexation Plan prior to the public comment period.
Upon receiving the plan 90 minutes after the meeting’s public comment concluded, city officials shared details of the project with the crowd. Even after public comment had ended, video footage shows that members of the community continued to speak up. Police escorted some out of the building.
“You keep talking about the pros of the deal but what are the cons?” one woman asked before being escorted away, as shown in video of the meeting shared by independent journalist Uriel Gavito.
Brownsville officials said they believe the project is positioned near the port to take advantage of the shipping channel, but they otherwise appeared to know few details, Brownsville business owner Josh Morales said in an online post.
Though SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches rockets, McCorkle ruled out rocket launches and engine tests on premises in her remarks, Morales added.
“But after the six-hour meeting, the public was never told exactly what SpaceX intends to build there,” he added in an Instagram video.
Activists also drew attention to the timing of the high-pressure hearing, which occurred during an unconventional time to hold a city meeting.
“Why are we rushing this? Why are we here on a Saturday?” Gavito said during public comment. “Why can’t we know what they’re going to do with the land?”
Data center suspicions
The Saturday meeting — with its “act now!” one-day offer — occurred just three days before the Brownsville City Commission was scheduled to hold a Tuesday workshop on implementing a 90-day data center moratorium.
Activists said the timing is no coincidence, adding that signs suggest SpaceX plans to develop a data center. Suspicion to that end began building weeks ahead of the company announcing its plan to disannex the property.
On July 16, Brownsville residents received a letter in the mail from the city’s Planning and Zoning Committee explaining that an unnamed company plans to build a data center within city limits. The notice was met with fierce opposition from the community, according to Gavito.
“With all that backlash, the company actually rescinded its permit request,” Gavito said in an Instagram video. “We packed city hall at every meeting we could, demanding a data center moratorium.”
An impending Tuesday gathering to discuss a moratorium on data center construction also would help explain the urgency of the Saturday meeting and the one-day ultimatum from SpaceX, activists argue.
Like many cities around the country, including San Antonio, Brownsville is considering stricter regulations on future data center development.
According to a city notice, Brownsville’s proposed regulations could include requiring the computing facilities to obtain a special permits while investing in closed-loop water cooling systems and sound-reducing landscape buffers.
The regulations also could limit future data center facilities to five acres in size and require that they maintain at least a one-mile separation from residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, places of worship, and other data centers, according to a city press release.
However, none of these regulations would apply to land outside city jurisdiction.
Data center job postings
After Saturday’s meeting, activists found SpaceX job postings for a data center in the area, which prompted further speculation that the disannexed property would be used to create a massive computing hub.
One new job listing is for a data center mechanical engineer position at Starbase, Texas — SpaceX’s corporate campus near Brownsville. The listing mentions needing someone to oversee water cooling systems for data center racks.
Another listing for a Power Plant Engineer position mentions gas turbines, indicating that SpaceX plans to build a gas-powered plant on the premises to serve a data center.
“SpaceX is building and operating combined-cycle gas turbine power plants that must come online, stay online, and perform,” the job listing states. “This role owns the design and build of the full power plant: gas turbines, mechanical and electrical balance of plant, and everything else that keeps the plant running at rated output, day after day.”
Requirements for the Power Plant Engineer position state that the ideal candidate must have “experience integrating power generation with co-located industrial or data center loads.”
Another listing advertises a senior legal counsel position for a SpaceX data center located in Brownsville, Texas.
According to its listing, the legal counsel position would “provide expert legal guidance on developing large-scale datacenter infrastructure and supporting utilities, including land acquisition and development, datacenter construction, on-site power generation, electrical transmission and distribution, gas pipelines and fuel supply, water and wastewater systems,” among other issues relating specifically to data center operation.
The legal counsel would also handle water rights, air permits, zoning and other issues, according to the listing.
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