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Greg Abbott's Hand-Picked Parks Commission Planned a Closed-Door Session on Selling Boca Chica State Park — Two Days After the Election. Sources Say the Buyer Is Elon Musk's SpaceX.

A draft agenda put the sale of 1,300 acres in Cameron County on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission's closed-door calendar for November 5. All nine commissioners are Greg Abbott appointees. Two sources told Texas Monthly the land is Boca Chica State Park and the buyer is SpaceX. After reporters asked, the agency said the sale isn't on its November agenda.

MAGA Report Cards · Oct 18, 2026

Greg Abbott's Hand-Picked Parks Commission Planned a Closed-Door Session on Selling Boca Chica State Park — Two Days After the Election. Sources Say the Buyer Is Elon Musk's SpaceX. — Photo: Brandon Bell / Getty, via Texas Monthly

Boca Chica State Park is 1,300 acres of beachfront at the southern tip of Texas, near Brownsville. Together with the wildlife refuges around it, it protects some of the last habitat in South Texas for animals like the endangered ocelot. It belongs to the people of Texas.

Greg Abbott's parks commission has been talking about selling it.

Texas Monthly reported on October 16 that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission planned to take up the sale of "1,300 acres" in Cameron County at its November 5 meeting. The item was set for a closed-door executive session — out of public view — according to a draft agenda. November 5 is two days after Abbott faces voters.

Two sources familiar with the talks told Texas Monthly that the buyer would be Elon Musk's SpaceX, and that the land is the state park, which sits right next to Musk's Starbase rocket site.

All nine members of the commission were appointed by Governor Greg Abbott.

What the agency said when reporters called

After Texas Monthly asked about the meeting and about Musk, a Parks and Wildlife spokesperson sent a one-line statement: "The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission is not considering the sale of the Boca Chica property at its November meeting."

Notice what that statement doesn't say. It doesn't say the commission never discussed a sale. It doesn't say SpaceX isn't the buyer. It doesn't say the idea is dead. By press time, the spokesperson hadn't answered follow-up questions about any of that, or about why the November 5 agenda had apparently changed. Sources told Texas Monthly the sale could come back before Abbott's commissioners at a later date.

In other words: by those sources' account, the sale didn't necessarily go away. It just isn't on the agenda for the week of the election anymore.

Why the timing matters

Texas Monthly notes that Abbott is in an unusually close race this year, with polls showing Democrat Gina Hinojosa within striking distance. Hinojosa has accused Abbott of "crony capitalism that is enriching multinational corporation CEOs like Elon Musk."

Musk, the world's richest man, is spending heavily in Texas this fall. Texas Monthly reports he has put a reported $158 million into a super PAC backing Ken Paxton's Senate campaign — we've covered the Musk money behind Paxton — and that Musk's own super PAC has been sending canvassers out to attack Hinojosa, according to The New York Times.

So the richest man in the world is spending money to help Texas Republicans win in November, and a commission picked entirely by the Republican governor had a closed-door item on selling his company a state park two days after the votes are counted.

Texas keeps handing this coastline to SpaceX

This would not be the first time the state bent its rules for Starbase. A sale would go further than any of them.

Last year, the Legislature gave Starbase — a city created by Musk's own employees — partial control of Boca Chica's public beaches. A last-minute addition to a bill let Starbase officials close the beach and the highway to it for SpaceX launches, as the Texas Tribune reported in a story KWTX republished, taking that power away from Cameron County. Local groups had fought the measure.
In 2024, Texas Parks and Wildlife agreed to give SpaceX 43 acres of the state park in a land swap. SpaceX later pulled out of that deal.
This summer, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to give SpaceX 715 acres of the federal wildlife refuge next door in exchange for other land farther up the coast.

And SpaceX wants a lot more room to operate. It has asked federal regulators to let it go from 25 launches a year at its South Texas site to 456, Texas Monthly reports. The refuges around it already deal with bright lights, fires, loud noise, and failed launches that rain debris down on protected land.

The state bought the land that became Boca Chica State Park in 1994, from The Nature Conservancy. Until 2023, it was managed as part of a national wildlife refuge.

"It stinks"

Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, told Texas Monthly: "It stinks. It looks really bad." He called Boca Chica "very ecologically sensitive" and "probably some of the most sensitive in the entire state," and said the potential sale "raises questions for me about the political influence of Elon Musk muscling his way into getting this land to expand operations."

Bekah Hinojosa, a Brownsville resident who co-founded the South Texas Environmental Justice Network (and is no relation to the candidate), put it more bluntly: "public land is not there for some billionaire to try to buy it and exploit it."

What we know

A commission made up entirely of Greg Abbott's appointees put the sale of 1,300 acres in Cameron County on a closed-door agenda for November 5, two days after Abbott's own election. Two sources told Texas Monthly the land is Boca Chica State Park and the buyer is Elon Musk's SpaceX — while Musk has put a reported $158 million behind Ken Paxton's campaign this fall. When reporters asked, the agency said the sale wasn't on its November agenda, and by press time it had not said whether the sale is off the table.