BASTROP, Texas — More growth is headed to Bastrop with another one of Elon Musk’s companies moving its headquarters there. Musk plans to relocate the social media site X’s headquarters from San Francisco, California to Bastrop, Texas.
Back in July, Musk posted on X saying he would be moving all of his companies to Texas, in response to a new California law that bans schools from requiring parental notification if a child identifies as transgender. Musk said he was looking for a space with about 100,000 square feet and room for 600 or more employees.
X already has employees in an Austin office, but a representative from the company said they will be moving all employees to Bastrop.
The company signed a three-year lease on a property, where Musk would be his own landlord. The building is near his “Boring Bodega”, a warehouse convenience store in Bastrop. That land near Musk’s “Hyperloop Plaza” also houses a building for The Boring Company and a Space X Starlink manufacturing facility across the street.
Bastrop City Manager Sylvia Carrillo-Trevino said the city was already expecting a 42% increase in population over the next five years, so bringing the X headquarters here will just increase that.
“The growth that’s coming, I think everybody already anticipated that growth with Austin, with Austin’s growth, and Austin being one of the hottest MSAs in the state, we expected the growth,” Carrillo-Trevino said. “The “X factor” as I’m going to call it, is just compounding that.”
What do neighbors think of X moving to Bastrop?
The reviews have been mixed when Bastrop residents heard Musk was permanently moving the headquarters to their city.
“It’s pretty cool, X headquarters coming right down, right down the road,” said Thomas Bradley, a Bastrop Resident. “Welcome Elon Musk, we’re glad to see you here.”
Eric McDonough, a resident who has lived in Bastrop for about seven years, is worried about the traffic that will come along with the increased population growth.
“I think it’s just going to be a lot of traffic,” McDonough said. “It’s going to take people so much more time to get to the places they need to go.”
McDonough says his commute to downtown Bastrop can range anywhere from an average eight-minute drive to about 30 with traffic on FM 969.
Solving Traffic Issues
Carrillo-Trevino says making sure these changes don’t bring “big city” traffic is something Bastrop is focusing on.
“It’s incumbent upon us to put things into place that create good spaces for people to live and not super dense urban environments that bring with them all of the other, you know, things that are associated with super dense populations,” Carrillo-Trevino said.
For those living in parts of “The Colony” neighborhoods, Carrillo-Trevino said FM 969 is their only way in and out. Already the road is packed with a lot of mining trucks, but with the headquarters moving there, it is expected to be busier.
The city says they have been hearing that TxDOT may be expanding FM 969 into a six-lane highway.
How will the city handle the water demand?
When it comes to water, Bastrop says the city is prepared for the growth. They are currently in the process of extending a wastewater line from the Musk companies at Space X all the way down 969 into their water treatment plant.
They also have new wells coming online at their XR Ranch to their north, which will put an additional five million gallons of water a day into the system.
But the most important thing for the city is holding on to the small-town charm that Bastrop was created with.
“We love our charm, and so protecting that inner core so that that’s not destroyed by everything that’s coming through,” Carrillo-Trevino said.
KVUE reached out for a comment from X on the move but have not received a response yet.