Elon Musk’s SpaceX in Brownsville, Texas, prompts inequality fears

• The spaceport Elon Musk calls “Starbase” would be a major investment anywhere, but it’s an especially dramatic one in South Texas.
• Concerned locals say SpaceX’s presence is “exploitative.” A local Ph.D. student says none of his STEM friends have gotten full-time SpaceX jobs.
• The mayor says Brownsville is lucky to have a generational figure like Musk nearby.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Just a few miles from the sand dunes Elon Musk now calls home, a whirling festival of lights is emerging beneath the full moon. Teenagers sing Mexican folk tunes and dance in folklorico dresses, all under palm trees bearing piñatas shaped like stars.

The cosmos has been on the minds of many in the Rio Grande Valley lately. In fact, it’s been difficult for people to focus on anything but space since the world’s richest man arrived two years ago, promising his interstellar dreams could be a rocket ship to prosperity for his neighbors too.