In addition to Musk’s management over the corporate, Starbase is predicted to be overseen by three individuals with longstanding connections with SpaceX, all of whom ran unopposed and with out a lot electoral aptitude.
The Texas Tribune, together with the nonprofit Sunlight Research Center, reviewed the three candidates’ public data and social media to know who will govern the newly designated space.
“There have been no signs of a traditional campaign along the Boca Chica Beach region in South Texas,” the Tribune’s Berenice Garcia wrote on Friday. “No yard signs. No campaign websites. No candidate forums.”
Only one individual ran for Mayor of Starbase: Robert “Bobby” Peden. Peden is in his mid-thirties, has labored for SpaceX for over a decade, and contributed $5,000 to SpaceX’s political motion committee in December.
Jenna Petrzelka and Jordan Buss ran to be the 2 commissioners for Starbase. Petrzelka, whose husband additionally works at SpaceX, began on the firm in 2012 and rose to supervisor of operations engineering at Starbase, a task she had for a couple of 12 months main as much as final summer time. On marketing campaign paperwork, she listed herself as a “philanthropist.” In 2022, she volunteered at Good Neighbor Settlement House, an area nonprofit helping migrants and the homeless neighborhood.
Buss, a senior director of Environmental Health and Safety for SpaceX, has labored on the firm since 2023. That 12 months, he made a $600 political contribution to the SpaceX PAC.
After Saturday’s vote to create the town of Starbase, the three candidates win mechanically.
The metropolis’s incorporation comes as each knowledgeable and private win for Musk, who has confronted backlash from Americans throughout the nation for his actions heading up the Department of Government Efficiency since President Donald Trump took workplace simply over 100 days in the past.
In addition to nationwide protests towards Musk at Tesla amenities and his involvement in gutting key federal funding applications, a number of polls have illustrated broad disapproval for the billionaire’s rising affect in Washington.
