After fleeing Silicon Valley for political and business reasons, Elon Musk is building a corporate campus in rural Texas – but his new neighbours have mixed views.

Half an hour east of Austin, past the airport, the clogged-up traffic starts to melt away and the plains of Central Texas open up, leaving the booming city behind.

Somewhere along the main two-lane highway, a left turn takes drivers down Farm-to-Market Road 1209. It seems like an unlikely address for a high-tech hub, but that's exactly what Elon Musk, the world's richest man and one of President Donald Trump's closest allies, hopes it will become.

Court filings indicate that a large metal building finished in the last few months will be the new headquarters of X, his social media platform.

A short distance away, a large logo of the Boring Company, Musk's infrastructure company, is plastered on the side of another headquarters. And across FM 1209 is a rapidly growing SpaceX facility which manufactures Starlink satellite internet equipment.

Like most technology tycoons, Musk had long made Silicon Valley his home and headquarters. Once a supporter of the Democrats, his move to Texas is part of a larger tech world trend and also appears to reflect his own transformed ideological views.

Here the land is (relatively) cheap, skilled tech workers from nearby Austin are plentiful, and local laws are favourable to development.

Of course, there are also specific political angles to the move.

In July 2024, Musk said he was quitting California after the state passed a law prohibiting teachers from enforcing rules about notifying families when students' gender identity changes.

Musk has an estranged transgender daughter and has spoken out against what he calls "woke mind virus" - which he describes in interviews as divisive identity politics - along with anti-meritocratic and anti-free speech ideas.

And so Musk upped sticks and headed to Texas, a Republican stronghold and the fastest-growing state in the US.

In addition to the cluster of buildings near Bastrop in central Texas, he has........

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