Hinojosa Asks to Halt Sale Proceedings for 1,300 Acres Near SpaceX Facility in Texas
Key Facts
Gina Hinojosa, Texas’s governor-elect, asked that no action be taken on the sale of land linked to SpaceX’s site in Cameron County during her transition to office, the Texas Tribune reported on November 5. Hinojosa said she spoke with the executive director of the state Parks and Wildlife Department and requested "no action" on the sale during this period. The request puts the land matter on hold without setting a new decision date or a date for proceedings to resume. An earlier report by the newspaper said a draft parks commission agenda included a discussion of transferring control of 1,300 acres in Cameron County. The area mentioned in the draft is where Boca Chica Beach and SpaceX’s launch site are located.
The acreage listed in the draft agenda is separate from Boca Chica State Park itself, which covers about 1,060 acres, according to the Texas Tribune. The park is near SpaceX operations, making any change in control of the surrounding land relevant to management of the public site near the company’s activities. But the draft referred to transferring control of 1,300 acres and did not establish that all of this land was for sale. Hinojosa also did not say in her remarks that her request was aimed at reviewing or changing plans for the Starship program. She focused on preventing action on the sale during her transition to office.
The land item appeared in a draft parks commission agenda and was then removed from the final version, according to a Texas Tribune report on October 31. The report said the department asked the attorney general’s office to prevent publication of the draft agenda, while the commission remained silent on the matter after the item was withdrawn. The item’s absence from the final agenda means the meeting produced no announced decision on transferring control of the land. The source did not announce a new vote or a specific date for returning the issue to the agenda. Hinojosa’s request comes as the matter’s fate remains unresolved at the commission level.
The issue follows Hinojosa’s victory in the Texas governor’s race, making her the first Democrat to hold the office in more than 30 years, according to the Associated Press. She will also be the first Latina woman to hold the office, the report said. In her victory speech, she said other people’s doubts about her had bothered her less than their doubts about voters, adding: "It never bothered me that they doubted me. It bothered me that they doubted us." The report said Governor Greg Abbott’s campaign had spent 180 million dollars since 2025 in a race seen as a safe path to a fourth term. The political shift gives the state land issue added significance as the transfer of power begins, while the announced request remains focused on sale proceedings.
The parks commission previously considered a separate deal involving Boca Chica State Park in March 2024, when it unanimously approved starting negotiations to exchange 43 acres of the park for 477 acres near the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. SpaceX later withdrew from that deal, the report said. There was also a separate exchange between the company and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which a federal judge in September declined to halt at the request of environmental and conservation groups. The report said at the time that the transfer of ownership was expected on September 22. The service’s assessment concluded that the proposed exchange did not constitute a major federal action with significant environmental effects, so an environmental impact statement was not required.
Interest in the land matter coincides with a separate federal review of a proposed increase in the frequency of Starship operations at Boca Chica. The Federal Aviation Administration is considering a two-phase proposal, under which the first phase would allow up to 100 launches annually, while the second would raise the limit to 456 launches annually and 912 landings, according to agency data. The previous environmental assessment allowed up to 25 orbital launches a year from the site. The launch-frequency review remains separate from Hinojosa’s request concerning the land sale proceedings, and the source did not announce any change to the federal proposal as a result of the request. The parallel processes show that the site involves state-level land decisions and an independent review of launch operations.
In the market, SpaceX shares fell 5% and Tesla shares fell 10.1% after the midterm elections, according to the Associated Press, amid concerns that a Democratic Congress would investigate Elon Musk’s work as the president’s former cost-cutting adviser. EL7 data showed SpaceX shares closing at 134.27 dollars on November 6, 2026. That figure is for the stated closing session and does not by itself establish the stock’s movement in response to Hinojosa’s request. The available data did not include a documented Tesla closing price for that day. The next step in the land matter depends on what the relevant authorities decide in the coming period, with no vote or return to the agenda announced so far.