What do you do when you’re a billionaire who owns several companies? If you’re Elon Musk, it looks like you build a whole town just for your employees.
Musk who owns Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX, Neuralink and Boring is planning on building his own ‘utopia’ in Texas and plans to name it Snailbrook, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Snailbrook is cuttently under construction outside of Austin near his Boring and SpaceX facilities, said the outlet.
Judjing by a Reddit post on r/BoringCompany subreddit, the town already has signs posted that read: ‘Welcome, snailbrook, tx, est. 2021’.
Facebook photos also revealed the town already had a collection of modular homes, a pool, an outdoor sports area, and a gym.
What is a company town?
It is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by one company that is also the main employer.
Company towns are often planned with amenities such as stores, schools, markets and recreation facilities. Some company towns have had high ideals, but many have been regarded as controlling or exploitative.
Musk reportedly plans on charging his employees $800 (£661) a month for one and two-bedroom homes.
While that sounds like a pretty great deal, you better not get fired. Employees would have just 30 days to vacate the premises if they were laid off or quit.
The idea of a company town is not something Musk just came up with.
It was a concept invented in the 1880s by George Pullman, head of Pullman’s Palace Car Company, for those who worked in his railroad car business.
Some of them are still around today. Last year, the Disney Company announced that it would be developing 1,300 units of affordable housing near Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida.
Similarly in Silicon Valley, Facebook is building a 1,730 unit called ‘Willow Village’, right next to its Menlo Park headquarters. It will provide residents with a grocery store, pharmacy, office space, sports, and outdoor facilities and even a shopping center.
SpaceX employs around 9,500 employees, according to court filings in 2021. The Boring Company is estiamted to have under under 200 people working for Musk.
The billionaire has proved to be a tough boss in the past with a demanding work ethic and a distaste for remote working.
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