Is Elon Musk creating a utopian city? The hellish, heavenly history of company towns
W elcome to Snailbrook, Texas. Established: 2021. Population: about 12, but with many more to come. In fact, in a decade or two, Snailbrook could be a gleaming, utopian city, shaped by the futuristic vision of the unavoidable tech titan of our day, Elon Musk.
Musk is moving into Texas big time. According to reports, he has quietly bought as many as 2,430 hectares (6,000 acres) in the Austin area – where his core business, Tesla, has been headquartered since 2021 – upon which factories and facilities are under construction for the rocket company SpaceX and the tunnelling company Boring (whose mascot is a snail, hence the town’s name). Now, Musk is adding housing for workers (which reportedly will be more affordable to rent than that in Austin) and Boring executives are talking of building an entire city. Should we be celebrating or worrying?
Corporation-built towns tend to go one of two ways: heavenly or hellish, but usually the second. On the one hand, companies want to build a place that attracts and nurtures its employees; on the other, they want to minimise overheads and squeeze as much out of their captive townsfolk as they can get away with.
Overriding all of this is the temptation for the founders (almost always white men) to build monuments to themselves and rule like dictators. Given Musk’s reputation for impulsive heavy-handedness and extreme attention-seeking, this does not bode well. But this is the guy who promises to colonise Mars, so it is worth examining what he is doing down here on Earth.
What will Musktopia look like? Details are scant. As well as factories, the Snailbrook site – in Bastrop county, about 35 miles outside Austin – hosts 12 prefab trailer homes and a depressing-looking outdoor recreation
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