SpaceX plans $24 billion compute site and gas-fired power plant at Starbase

SpaceX plans to build and run a gas-fired power plant together with a super-compute facility on about 444 acres inside the city limits of Starbase, Texas, according to a public notice the City of Starbase issued on 9 November 2026. Starbase's city commission is due to consider a property tax abatement and a linked economic development agreement for the project at a public hearing on 9 December 2026 at 7:00 p.m.

The notice names Space Exploration Technologies Corp. as both the landowner and the applicant. It puts the capital investment for the project's initial phases at about $24 billion and says the work could be built in several phases, with expansions later. The tract lies just east of Brownsville, between Boca Chica Boulevard and the Port of Brownsville in Cameron County, inside the Cameron County Enterprise Zone.

The Texas Tribune reports that the plant could power the compute facility, which it calls a data centre, so that the site would not need a connection to the Texas grid. SpaceX did not answer the Tribune's questions about the project.

The Tribune says the land, which it puts at 444.45 acres, was removed from Brownsville earlier this year at SpaceX's request, after SpaceX offered $220 million for the city's water and wastewater projects, and was later brought into Starbase. Brownsville's own 90-day halt to new data centre applications, covering the city and the area under its extraterritorial jurisdiction, took effect the previous week, according to the Tribune.