On Saturday, the town of Starbase, Texas was born. The town includes Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch facility and company-owned land covering 1.6 square miles.

If Musk and President Donald Trump have their way, America as a whole could eventually be Starbase, Texas.

Starbase is hardly a democracy. It’s the brainchild of Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who founded the town because he didn’t want to deal with local regulations in getting approvals for his space launches.

Consider:

Starbase is a company town. That company is Musk’s SpaceX. Its new mayor, Bobby Peden, is a SpaceX vice president. He was the only name on the ballot. Its two commissioners are also SpaceX employees. The local measure creating Starbase passed 212 to 6. Almost everyone who voted works for SpaceX or has a relative who does.

America is starting to look like one big national company town. The largest 1% of U.S. corporations now own a record 97% of all U.S. corporate assets. Fewer big corporations dominate every American industry, and they’re exerting more political influence than ever. Musk and Trump are twisting tax laws and regulations in favor of even fewer big corporations.

Starbase is hardly a democracy. It’s the brainchild of Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who founded the town because he didn’t want to deal with local regulations in getting approvals for his space launches. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has hamstrung federal agencies under whose authority SpaceX falls, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Aviation Administration—which just decided to allow him to go from five Starship launches a year to 25.

America, too, is looking less and less like a democracy. One man posts executive orders on social media, often without explanation or reason—and entire industries are created or destroyed, hundreds of thousands of jobs are terminated, universities and law firms are threatened, and legal residents of the United States are abducted without court hearings. Several of his advisers have disdained........

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