Last night I was trawling through Twitter, as you do, when I came across a thread called ‘This is a thread about what it’s like to be Elon Musk’s neighbour.’
Naturally, I had to have a reccy of it and the tea is as batshit as you’d expect.
This is a thread about what it’s like to be Elon Musk’s neighbor.
— Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) May 21, 2020
“Briefly, several years ago SpaceX moved some of its operations to Boca Chica, Texas, a small beach community of fixed-income retirees,” the writer began, referencing Musk’s company.
“They promised to be good neighbours. Backstory here.”
Strap in, folks.
This quiet community by a wildlife preserve now had 24/7 construction, big trucks at all hours, bright lights at night, awful disruption.
— Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) May 21, 2020
What does this mean? A sheriff’s deputy bangs on your door at 10pm and tells you there’s a rocket test that night between 3-4am. Now, this is a mile from your house. And every previous rocket has blown up.
— Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) May 21, 2020
So you can either cross your fingers that nothing bad happens, or grab your pets and try to find somewhere safe to hunker down at night in the middle of the pandemic. This has happened nearly every night since May 3.
— Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) May 21, 2020
At the same time, the public beach — one of the only free open spaces in the area, which was described to me as “the poor ppl’s beach” (in a good way) is completely shut down while SpaceX is testing — which has been pretty much constantly this entire month
— Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) May 21, 2020
In SpaceX’s original FAA filing, they claimed there would be a handful of tests a year, minimal disruption to local life (human & animal), rarely closing the beach, never on weekends. This was all, frankly, bullshit.
— Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) May 21, 2020
So: Elon is essentially taking over public resources (beaches, wildlife preserves) & other people’s property just bc he wants it, and Texas is not only permitting but encouraging him. (This state pretends to love private property, but it loves corporations more.)
— Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) May 21, 2020
Also infuriating — SpaceX says residents have to move bc it’s not safe for them to remain in Boca Chica. But as @DaveMosher has reported, the company was secretly planning to turn the whole (lovely!!!) area into a resort for employees https://t.co/hN2Z4Wj2wC
— Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) May 21, 2020
It’s infuriating. There are SO few places like Boca Chica left. It’s beautiful, undeveloped, beloved by locals, part of a key wildlife corridor. A place where ppl w/out a lot of money can live near the beach. And Elon Musk has just taken it over because he wants it.
— Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) May 21, 2020
“Somebody else builds a house next to you and tells you to get out of your house–;ike, what the hell? . . . We’re going to fight that issue, because it is just fundamentally unfair.” –Elon Musk in 2005 when SpaceX was temporarily booted from its CA launchpad by Lockheed Martin
— Rachel Monroe (@rachmonroe) May 21, 2020
Head on over to the thread and have a read of the responses, ‘coz they’re just as wild.
