Governor Greg Abbott announced that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department commission will not be addressing the potential sale of Boca Chica State Park to Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the near future. This statement comes on the heels of a report by Texas Monthly highlighting the issue.
During a news conference on Monday, Abbott acknowledged that he had limited information regarding the proposed sale, which was brought to light last week. “What I know is that that’s not coming up for a vote anytime soon,” he stated.
Abbott expressed his lack of knowledge about the specifics being considered by the Parks and Wildlife Department. However, he emphasized his commitment to preserving state parkland, reiterating, “I’ve been at multiple locations across the state where we are adding new parks to the entire parks and wildlife system. No state in America has been adding more parkland than what I’ve done and what Texas has done; I want to continue to preserve our parkland in the state of Texas.”
According to Texas Monthly, the Parks and Wildlife commission, which consists of members appointed by Abbott, planned to discuss the potential sale of 1,300 acres of public land in Cameron County during a closed session at their upcoming meeting on November 5. SpaceX has been identified as the potential buyer for the land, which includes Boca Chica State Park.
Neither SpaceX nor the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has commented on the potential sale at this time, and Cameron County officials were also unavailable for comment. Stephanie Garcia, a spokesperson for Parks and Wildlife, clarified in a statement, “The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission is not considering the sale of the Boca Chica property at its November meeting.”
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa voiced her opposition to the potential sale and criticized Abbott’s ties to SpaceX’s owner, Elon Musk. “Like so many families in the Valley, I spent my summers at Boca Chica Beach,” said Hinojosa, who hails from Brownsville, approximately 18 miles from the beach. “Now, after 12 years of selling out Texas to his corporate donors and making working people foot the bill, Greg Abbott is handing over our land to the world’s only trillionaire. Let me be clear: Texas is not for sale.”
In 2024, the Texas Parks and Wildlife commission had previously approved a land swap with SpaceX, which involved transferring 43 acres from Boca Chica State Park to the company in exchange for 477 acres adjacent to Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. However, SpaceX later opted out of the agreement.
Boca Chica State Park spans over 1,055 acres along the Gulf Coast, located just three miles north of the Rio Grande’s mouth. The park features dunes, marshes, and coastal grassland, and was selected by SpaceX in 2014 as a launch site due to its remote location.
Since then, SpaceX has acquired privately owned land in the vicinity for future development and to reduce land use conflicts. Environmental activists have raised concerns regarding the impact of SpaceX’s rocket launches on the local environment and wildlife, leading to lawsuits against state and federal authorities in an effort to halt further land acquisition by the company. These attempts have largely been unsuccessful.
Recently, a federal judge dismissed the activists’ efforts to block the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from allowing SpaceX to acquire 715 acres in a nearby wildlife refuge in exchange for 683 acres of private land adjacent to another refuge.
