According to tax filings, Elon Musk’s charity, simply known as “The Foundation” is using a 100 million dollar gift from the CEO to start a STEM-focused K-12 school. Once the K-12 school is up and running, Musk plans to open a University with a STEM concentration in Austin, Texas.
This is not Musk’s first rodeo with educational institutions, however. He originally founded Ad Astra, in 2014, for four of his children. Musk then hired Joshua Dahn, a co-founder of a learning game company, Synthesis, to design the school and teach the students, which were comprised of Musk’s children and the children of SpaceX employees for free.
Ad Astra ended when Musk’s children graduated in 2020 and was replaced by Astra Nova, an exclusive and exclusively remote school that is currently educating 200 children aged 10-14 worldwide.
Beyond STEM, Musk’s other (sometimes misguided) passion is free speech. He claims the newest school/university will be a haven for free speech as well as being as inexpensive as possible. However, I am not sure this idea is as novel as he believes it is. In 2019, Texas passed a law requiring universities to allow anyone to speak freely while on campus and create disciplinary sanctions for students who interfere with other’s free speech. This law prevails for all speech, even speech others would find immoral, or offensive. (Senate Bill 18.)
Additionally, the University of Texas System Board of Regents unanimously approved the adoption of the Chicago Statement, a declaration of commitment to free speech originally created for the University of Chicago in 2014 and eventually adopted by 91 other colleges and universities across the United State. According to the statement, the board “guarantees all members of the UT System the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.” It reads, “Debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most individual members of the UT System community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.” (Read more about it here.) (Note that threats and illegal speech are still not tolerated, even with the adoption of more liberal policies and laws in Texas Universities.)
Furthermore, Musk already has a bit of competition in Austin, and no, I’m not talking about the University of Texas, but rather The University of Austin Texas.
Their website states “The University of Austin prepares thoughtful and ethical innovators, builders, leaders, and citizens through fair-minded open inquiry and sustained civil discourse.” Their website also states that they “fearlessly pursue the truth” and “Champion academic freedom…At UATX students, faculty, staff, and families have the right to pursue their academic interests and deliberate freely without fear of censorship and retribution” and already has several locations in major cities across the U.S.. (Sounds pretty similar, no?)
Finally, Musk might be starting yet another school in the Austin area according to the Houston Chronicle, which spotted job postings for Ad Astra Montessori School of Bastrop, Texas. The job postings suggest that the school could educate a larger demographic this time, ages 3-12. Not much is known about this school, however with most of Elon’s major companies located in the Austin area like The Boring Co., Neuralink, SpaceX, and Tesla it makes sense that Elon would create his education empire here as well. What’s more? In 2023, news broke that Musk or his affiliates were planning a residential development in the area — with possible plans to incorporate a city. It’s just a matter of time before Musk takes over Austin.
