Is SpaceX buying a 200-plus square mile patch of Louisiana?
According to a real estate agent in Louisiana, there is credible but unconfirmed evidence that SpaceX is in the process of buying a 136,000 acre plot of land owned by Exxon on the coast of Louisiana west of New Orleans, near the unincorporated town of Pecan Island.
The rumor — repeated in private group chats, in coffee shops in Abbeville, and in hunting camps from Forked Island to Grand Chenier — is that SpaceX has acquired or is in the process of acquiring approximately 136,000 acres of coastal Louisiana marshland straddling Pecan Island and Freshwater City in Vermilion Parish. The footprint reportedly stretches from south of Highway 82 down to the Gulf of America, encompassing some of the most ecologically rich and economically untouched wetlands in North America.
If true, this would be the single largest private land acquisition in the modern history of Vermilion Parish. To put it in perspective: 136,000 acres is roughly 212 square miles — bigger than the entire city of New Orleans. SpaceX’s existing Boca Chica/Starbase facility in South Texas, which has reshaped Brownsville’s economy and real estate market in just five years, is built on a footprint of less than 100 acres. A 136,000-acre Louisiana site would not be a launch pad. It would be an industrial campus on a scale never before seen in American aerospace.
I must emphasize that this agent is speculating, and that there is no confirmed evidence that SpaceX is the rumored buyer. At the same time, the agent has done his homework. This purchase by SpaceX would make sense on multiple levels. It would give it a very large facility smack dab between Boca Chica and Florida, on the Gulf, so that if Starships are manufactured here they could be easily shipped both east and west to those launch sites. This facility would also give SpaceX to option of shifting more of its operations out of unfriendly California and to a more friendly state, something Elon Musk has been doing since the Covid panic.
It would allow for the construction of larger data centers and satellite manufacturing factories, without much opposition from local communities.
Finally, there is the possibility this location could also serve as a spaceport, though it would only work well for polar orbits.
Stay tuned. If this speculation is true we should find out momentarily.
Hat tip reader Steve Golson.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
According to a real estate agent in Louisiana, there is credible but unconfirmed evidence that SpaceX is in the process of buying a 136,000 acre plot of land owned by Exxon on the coast of Louisiana west of New Orleans, near the unincorporated town of Pecan Island.
The rumor — repeated in private group chats, in coffee shops in Abbeville, and in hunting camps from Forked Island to Grand Chenier — is that SpaceX has acquired or is in the process of acquiring approximately 136,000 acres of coastal Louisiana marshland straddling Pecan Island and Freshwater City in Vermilion Parish. The footprint reportedly stretches from south of Highway 82 down to the Gulf of America, encompassing some of the most ecologically rich and economically untouched wetlands in North America.
If true, this would be the single largest private land acquisition in the modern history of Vermilion Parish. To put it in perspective: 136,000 acres is roughly 212 square miles — bigger than the entire city of New Orleans. SpaceX’s existing Boca Chica/Starbase facility in South Texas, which has reshaped Brownsville’s economy and real estate market in just five years, is built on a footprint of less than 100 acres. A 136,000-acre Louisiana site would not be a launch pad. It would be an industrial campus on a scale never before seen in American aerospace.
I must emphasize that this agent is speculating, and that there is no confirmed evidence that SpaceX is the rumored buyer. At the same time, the agent has done his homework. This purchase by SpaceX would make sense on multiple levels. It would give it a very large facility smack dab between Boca Chica and Florida, on the Gulf, so that if Starships are manufactured here they could be easily shipped both east and west to those launch sites. This facility would also give SpaceX to option of shifting more of its operations out of unfriendly California and to a more friendly state, something Elon Musk has been doing since the Covid panic.
It would allow for the construction of larger data centers and satellite manufacturing factories, without much opposition from local communities.
Finally, there is the possibility this location could also serve as a spaceport, though it would only work well for polar orbits.
Stay tuned. If this speculation is true we should find out momentarily.
Hat tip reader Steve Golson.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Perhaps they could thread the needle just south of Florida with medium-inclination launches, just as they do from Boca Chica. 35 degrees (just my eyeball estimate) is good enough for Starlink.
Sounds great for launching data centers to sun-synchronous orbit. Also of interest is that a fellow on X named Ozan Bellik (who is part of a group building another launch vehicle) had just suggested to his team they should try launching from Louisiana: https://x.com/BellikOzan/status/2050791038739181732?s=20
Great! I wonder if SpaceX / Musk will eventually donate part of the land to conservationists?
Spaceports need proximity to cities if starship point to point passenger travel is still planned. Miami to Tokyo in 90 min
If this comes to fruition, expect an uproar, just as Jefferson had with the FIRST Louisiana Purchase.
I’ve also seen speculation that the purpose is one you haven’t mentioned: natural gas. Elon does like his vertical integration, and note who the former owner of the land was: Exxon.
David Eastman: yes a major reason this is attractive to SpaceX is access to natural gas. Just to the west at Calcasieu Pass is a major LNG (liquified natural gas) terminal.
The idea isn’t for SpaceX to produce its own natural gas. That wouldn’t supply nearly enough. The key is to have direct access to the global market for LNG, in huge quantities.
Ronaldus Magnus: there are state wildlife refuges nearby on either side of this parcel.
Right you are Steve, and Louisiana is far more purple. Boca might get the occasional cartel thug, but even as politically as hot as things are now—Boca is still rather sleepy.
I have suggested this before, but Elon needs to go to Mobile Alabama if for no other reason than the vast stainless steel plants nearby.
If he REALLY wants to conquer space, Mobile is the only sensible place. Less spartan than Boca, but not as busy as the mouth of the Mississippi. That state is spiritually dark as well. Alabama did not get ONE tornado warning this past April—typically our most dangerous month. This state is prayed up, especially following Charlie.
The SLS pathfinder, the same size as Starship and also made of steel….made in Birmingham far from the coast. We have a port of call in Birmingport he could buy for a song. The Mobile river can ferry materials to him.
The number one reason he should come to my state is political protection. If he wants to replace SLS, then HE must replace SLS.
I saw Jared talk about “no commercial replacement just yet, but surely”….that came off a bit weird.
We are also fighters here—unlike the CCC, we don’t roll over easy…but that is another asset. To steal a quote from Michael Ironsides—everybody fights, no one quits.
I invite Elon to come to Alabama…especially the sugar sands of Dauphin Island and thereabouts.
They are worldbeaters.
Mr. Keaty, who wrote the linked article, has done an estimable amount of homework. I hope it all turns out to be true. If so, it could well mean an infrastructure build-out bigger than Starbase, Roberts Road and the launch pads at LC-39A and SLC-37 combined. The notional SpaceX property being surrounded by wildlife refuges would certainly provide a lot more distance from human habitation to ameliorate noise from launches and booster and ship recoveries.
Politically, it also makes Jared Isaacman’s job of winding down SLS and Orion much easier. Sen. Kennedy, even at his advanced age, should be turning handsprings if this comes off. They’d have to relocate, but there would be jobs for current Boeing workers at Michoud and a lot more besides.
There are other lessees of space at Michoud than Boeing. If Boeing clears out, one assumes any firms remaining would have right of first refusal on taking over the vacated space and almost certainly on more attractive terms than their current leases. That would offset the wage increases they’d have to pay their own employees to keep them from decamping to jobs in Elon’s tidewater duchy.
Among other things, this news appears to nicely answer the question of what Elon intends to do with all of that money he expects to raise from the SpaceX initial public offering.
Senator Kennedy doing handsprings would be a sight to behold.
But if that is purchased, and he isn’t allowed to do anything with it because wetlands—bad move.
Alabama would treat him like Saban or Bear. He would be welcomed.
Maybe Elon’s an LSU fan.
Another Mobilian here seconding Mobile county. The combination of I-65 to points north (including Huntsville) and I-10 for Texas and FL travel, rail, Tennessee-Tombigbee Canal connecting with the upper Mississippi and Ohio rivers, the port of Mobile with an ever deepeni g ship channel courtesy of Walmart and Amazon here. Intracoastal canal, and the mega runway at the old Brookley. Austal for shipbuilding plus Airbus for some overlapping mfg workforce. The old Thyssenkrupp steel plant in Calvert north of Mobile along the river and rail.
At one point way back there was talk of launching rocket launches from repurposed oil platforms operating out of Mobile, w rockets built in Huntsville.
P.S. to my plug for Mobile and Mobile county.
Has its own oil and natural gas coming ashore.
Also a big state university FWIW. Plenty of chemical industries up Hwy 43 too.
Another interesting about Mobile county, for last three decades or more Mobile keeps dodging the nastier hurricanes that tend to go east or west of us. Dumb luck or perhaps a subtlety in the weather patterns.
This is all ‘pump-off’ land. Meaning you throw up a levee and pump the water out of the enclosure. Too susceptible to hurricanes, even near misses if you are on the ‘wrong side’ of a near miss. No place for workers to live anywhere close by except Forked Island and they closed the school there 30 years ago.
And Louisiana is not purple. Our politicians have learned that democrats don’t get elected here so they all lie and claim to be republican, for example our current governor “John Bell” Landry has never seen a problem that more government can’t fix.
People forget that hunters and outdoorsmen the Fur/Fish/Game that Greens disowned–were big opponents of development….cajuns won’t roll over.
You don’t need everything in one big place…Alabama has lots of old, already developed (but rusting) properties that can be razed to the ground along the length of the state. The Tenn Tom is usable too.
BTW….I hear they blew up the deluge.
How can you blow up a deluge?
Elon, you need a new set of good ole boys who actually know what they are doing.
Newscaper: I’m skeptical SpaceX will build in Alabama, especially with the size of the purchase they just made in Louisiana. They’ve already got large factories under construction in Florida and Texas, access to plenty of LNG, shipping, and anything else that Mobile might offer. Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems unlikely.
The best shrimp in the world by a large margin.
Could someone tell me how long Exxon has owned that particular parcel, over what period they acquired it, and for what original purpose?
That much land doesn’t exist in a vacuum and history doesn’t begin when/if Musk buys this.
Any time I hear “marshland,” or “wetland,” I know the EPA has been involved. Is there a Superfund site somewhere?
I’m not convinced that the location is only good for polar orbits – given that Starship is fully reusable, there’s no reason it couldn’t be certified to fly overland profiles once its reliability is proven.
“encompassing some of the most ecologically rich and economically untouched wetlands in North America”
* * * ALERT * * * * * * ALERT * * *
How much has it cost SpaceX to fight off the hordes of leftists PrOtEcTiNg OuR EaRtH™
I would have thought Elon would have learned his lesson about building where the water table is above grass level ;)
I don’t think Space X needs this land for launches.
Mineral rights maybe but he will pay a huge price for that.
Political leverage. Obviously. If Florida or Texas presses him he could use the new property to threaten a move.
An LNG port for his fuel. I can see that. They are pretty much just a dock. enough tanks to hold a ship load of fuel.and a pipeline. That could all be hurricane proofed pretty easy.
And 90% of that land could still be set aside or just protected for environmental or ecology reasons. Elon could easily let eco scientists access to the land for monitoring. Its not like he could keep them out totally.
When this whole Boca Chica Space X thing was starting up I looked for land close by that I could use to watch launches. I found an almost 500 acre piece of swamp land that was for sale but the state required the new owner did no improvements to it and it would be left open for researchers to have full access to it all the time. As the owner I would be allowed to fish on it and keep a house boat, yacht on it to live on. But not permanently.
If I had the cash to toss away I might have bought it but resale value stank.
With a low population in Louisiana, the industrial site will be welcome with tax advantages to begin with. It’s a good move, the blow back won’t be extreme.
Talking about data centers in orbit, they can’t build mega complexes like this in orbit without nuclear power.
A big controversy here in Utah, 40,000 acres (62 Square miles) purchased in the salt Marsh on the north side of the great Salt Lake (under the Hill Air Force training flight pattern).
STRATOS VS. EVERY UTAH DATA CENTER COMBINED
3×
BIGGER AT PHASE 1
10×
BIGGER AT FULL BUILDOUT
ALL 48 UTAH DATA CENTERS COMBINED DRAW ~920 MW. STRATOS PHASE 1 = 3,000 MW. FULL = 9,000 MW
(that’s 1/2 of the power the entire state consumes)
By law they must build their own power plant with the militaries cooperation, reasons why it’s not explained.
There’s thousands of oil wells throughout the Uinta basin, southern Wyoming and western Colorado. They provide the crude oil for the seven refineries in North Salt Lake city, which provides the gas and diesel fuel for the entire west coast through pipelines built since 2012. With the oil, they discovered vast fields of liquid natural gas. The new data centers plan on consuming it as quickly as possible… Who would’ve thunk it the way the environmentalist claim the carbon is destroying our atmosphere and our planet?
There’s data centers in every state now, hundreds in Virginia and California. Utah has 13 large ones with 14 more planned and under construction. (Most of them under 1000 MW) The huge power plant in Delta that was decommissioned that formally provided Southern California with power is being refitted for natural gas. The data center there announced last year is called a giga site, when finished it will be the largest in the world.
I can’t help but thinking it’s just a fad, that there will be revolution in technology that’ll make all these data centers obsolete. A race to control everything! One ring to rule them all… probably a breakthrough in quantum technology.
Personally I believe it’s all hype, billionaires not knowing to what to do with their money and just doing what all the other billionaires are doing. Like the Tolamac reactors using Fusion instead of fission but still having nuclear by products. The idea was sold on promises that they can’t deliver because the technology is not there, just throw another billion dollars at it and will get it right?… I saw an article last year that they’ve built 77 of these Tolamac reactors without success… What was the definition of insanity? 100 billion wasted? I suppose the money could be used to make bombs with an expiring shelf-life that wars are created just to use up the old stock pile.
Great News, Louisiana needs the development and would give them less trouble than Texas/Florida.
To Max
The revolution is analog AI
A step
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-silicon-oscillators-problems-thousands-years.html
Max,
You have the reason why right above, though Stratos will use about double the state’s present energy consumption (9 GW compared to 4 GW), and the reasons why the MIDA is involved is because it sits on land under their jurisdiction, along with it being more of a one-stop shop, as it were, with permitting, bond issuing, zoning, etc.
Quantum computing won’t obsolete data centers, because quantum systems are generally good at things like quantum physics, cryptography, and materials simulations. What data centers are mainly used for are web services, streaming, cloud computing, AI inference, and databases. It’s far more likely demand for data centers will go up, not down, with the expansion of quantum computing. Perhaps you mean LLMs are a fad, but data centers do quite a bit more than that.
I think you mean tokamaks. They don’t ‘use’ fission or fusion, it’s a device specifically designed to create fusion reactions. You can’t take a nuclear power plant and substitute one for the other. The potential of fusion energy is substantially greater than the amount of money we’ve spent on it; whether it’s worth pursuing or not is if you think that enabling everything from fast transport across the solar system, to very cheap desalination, to atomic-scale recycling, is worthwhile, or not.
Jeff Wright,
This has a fairly narrow application and won’t replace data centers or silicon-based hardware.
The MIDA you spoke of is in the news this morning, they’re backing off the purchase as of excessive land and water rights. It was created in 2007 as a public private partnership that private entities can use taxpayer money with its own texting authority for public projects.
Everyone smells something fishy and there’s a lot of pushback.