Starbase, the company town created by Elon Musk’s SpaceX in South Texas, is forming its own police force.
During a special meeting Tuesday, the City Commission approved an ordinance creating a city police department with approval from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE). The department will be run by a police chief elected by the city commission and is expected to hire eight officers, according to local news outlet Valley Central. It could be up and running in a few months.
“There are a lot of assets here from SpaceX’s operations,” said Starbase City Administrator Kent Myers. “These assets need to be protected, so police departments will play a critical role in protecting those assets.”
It is not yet clear whether Starbase has submitted an application to TCOLE. The city and TCOLE did not respond to requests for comment. Starbase has reportedly hired security consulting firm Vision Quest Solutions to build the department.
Starbase is where SpaceX builds and tests its prototype Starship rocket. This city is small. It currently has only a few hundred residents, most of whom are SpaceX employees (or their families). However, it is geographically isolated. The nearest neighboring town is Brownsville, about 10 miles away, but the drive may take more than 45 minutes.
The police station is the latest addition to the public services provided by Starbase since it was incorporated as a city last year. In October, a small group of SpaceX employees living on Starbase started a volunteer fire department. The city also created a fire chief position and took charge of its own building inspections and permits around the same time.
Starbase initially attempted to contract with the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office to handle law enforcement within city limits. The city signed a five-year contract with the Sheriff’s Office to have two deputies patrol the city at a time and a total of eight deputies assigned to the detail.
Tech Crunch Event
Boston, Massachusetts
|
June 23, 2026
Starbase also reached an agreement with the sheriff’s office last year to use the county jail. The company town agreed to pay $100 per day per inmate and reimburse additional costs, including medical expenses.
But it looks like the deal didn’t go through.
“We weren’t having much success finding deputies through the county, so we decided to change direction,” Myers told Valley Central. This appears to be partly due to the contract’s lack of civil servant protections, Sheriff Manuel Treviño told the outlet.
