Elon Musk returns to Starbase the week his SpaceX chip plant clears a key hurdle

Elon Musk flew from Moffett Federal Airfield in California to Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport on June 9 in a three-hour, fifteen-minute Gulfstream G550 flight. The tail number N272BG is part of the five-jet fleet registered to Falcon Landing LLC, a SpaceX-linked entity in Hawthorne.

The return to Starbase arrives the same week Grimes County commissioners voted 4-1 to grant SpaceX a 100% property tax abatement for its proposed Terafab semiconductor facility, according to Houston Public Media. The $55 billion first-phase chipmaking plant, a joint venture with Tesla and Intel per AOL, faces backlash from residents over environmental and transparency concerns—but Elon Musk posted on X that the deal still boosts county tax revenue by roughly 25%.

The flight from KNUQ—adjacent to SpaceX headquarters—to KBRO is one of the most logged routes in the fleet's history, tracking directly with Starship milestones and manufacturing expansion. While the company faces a separate sonic boom lawsuit from 80 South Texas residents (ufcwmonitor.com), this week's trip aligns with the regulatory and financial push behind the largest terrestrial construction project in SpaceX's portfolio.