Ship 40 is stacked atop Booster 20 in preparation for Flight 13 at SpaceX’s South Texas facility in Cameron County, Texas, July 22, 2026.
Reginald Massalone | Null Photo | Getty Images
Elon Musk continues to expand into the southern United States. space xhis aerospace and technology conglomerate is planning a $100 billion launch facility in Louisiana.
The Louisiana Department of Economic Development said in a joint statement that SpaceX will establish a Starbase in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, to “support thousands of launches per year.”
SpaceX stock rose about 2.5% on Tuesday following the announcement.
When construction is complete, Starbase in Los Angeles will serve as the primary launch facility for SpaceX’s Starship, the largest rocket ever built and designed to be completely reusable.
Musk has ambitions to massively expand SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, launch orbiting data centers and one day colonize Mars. The legitimacy of these ambitions and SpaceX’s nearly $2 trillion market capitalization rests on Starship’s success.
SpaceX said in a video posted to its website on Tuesday that it took about seven years to build the launch pad and search for a location where it could obtain enough fuel for operations. Musk said in the video that the company will bring “probably 10,000 really exciting jobs” to Louisiana with the spaceport.
In Tuesday’s announcement, SpaceX said it will work with the state to “restore historic beaches” in Louisiana, “restore wetlands” and ensure wetlands around the new facility are “protected from storms.”
SpaceX previously faced community backlash, lawsuits and fines following environmental violations at its first Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, now a company town known as Starbase.
During Starship’s first test flight in Texas in April 2023, energy from the rocket exploded SpaceX’s concrete launch pad, causing the spacecraft to explode in mid-air. The fire has consumed about 4 acres of land in Boca Chica State Park, south of Launch Pad, Texas, with chunks of concrete thrown over important nesting and migration areas for some endangered species.
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In 2024, SpaceX was also found to have repeatedly released pollutants into or near Texas waters and violated the Clean Water Act at its Texas launch facility, state officials said in a violation notice focused on the water flooding system.
SpaceX’s efforts in Louisiana follow Musk’s move from California to Texas, Tennessee and Mississippi. The company said Louisiana is its fourth launch site.
Musk’s AI venture, now known as SpaceXAI, has built the Colossus data center and power plant in Greater Memphis. Before that, Musk moved the automaker’s headquarters. teslafrom California to Austin, Texas. Tesla currently operates a large vehicle assembly plant in Austin and is testing driverless cars, robotaxi services and CyberCab vehicles in the region.
Tesla and SpaceX partner up intelalso plans to build a large-scale AI chip factory in Grimes County, Texas.
—CNBC’s Kif Leswing contributed to this article.
Correction: This article has been corrected to reflect that SpaceX will establish a starbase in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. The parish name was misspelled in the previous version.
