Elon Musk reportedly wants to be his employees’ landlord

Elon Musk is reportedly attempting to build a company town where Tesla, Boring and SpaceX workers might live. The mooted town, which is around 35 miles away from Austin, Texas, would likely be called Snailbrook, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The publication unearthed documents that lay out plans to build 110 homes next to Boring and SpaceX facilities in Bastrop County. The report states that Boring employees were invited last year to apply for housing, with rents expected to start at around $800 per month for a two- or three-bedroom home. The median rent in nearby Bastrop is around $2,200 a month, so the workers would be paying below-market rates.

Still, employees who lived in the town would be further beholden to Musk. In addition to receiving a salary from his businesses, they’d be paying him rent. They’d have 30 days to leave the home were they to get fired from Boring or otherwise depart from the company, the report notes. Executives have discussed inviting workers from Musk’s other companies to apply for Snailbrook housing too — Tesla’s Texas Gigafactory is around a 30-minute drive from the town of Bastrop.

Plans for the town include converting a home into a Montessori school for up to 15 students, as well as possible incorporation. The latter would allow Musk to set certain rules for the municipality, which would also apparently need to hold a mayoral election.

Entities in Musk’s orbit have snapped up at least 3,500 acres of land in the Austin area over the last few years, records are said to show. Last year, Musk, his architectural designer, former girlfriend Grimes and Ye (aka Kanye West) reportedly discussed ideas for the town several times last year, though nothing was finalized from those talks.

Meanwhile, nearby residents have raised concerns about the environmental impact of the projects. As the Journal notes, Boring has applied to discharge up to 140,000 gallons of industrial wastewater a day into the Colorado River. Worries have also been expressed about how testing of Boring’s tunneling machines may affect groundwater and wells.

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