An education ecosystem is being built in Elon Musk’s image. It starts in Bastrop County.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

---

BASTROP COUNTY — From the outside, nothing appears to be special about the house at the end of Earhardt Road.

It looks like many of the other ranches that dot this rural stretch of highway less than half an hour outside Austin’s city limits. Simple, white facade. Black iron gate. A lone star adorning the cut-glass door.

Cars and trucks whizz down the farm-to-market road out front, taking no notice of it.

But behind its walls, the nondescript farmhouse represents a key step in what may be the next big venture for the world’s richest man.

This is Ad Astra, a private school for kids ages 3-6. It’s opened right around the corner from Elon Musk’s massive corporate compound in Bastrop County, which already houses offices for SpaceX, the Boring Company and, soon, X (formerly Twitter).

Records show an entire system of education — from pre-K to college — is being created in Musk’s image. And it starts right here in rural Central Texas.

Musk’s name isn’t on the school’s application or its website. It isn’t even on the paperwork of a nonprofit that reported total assets of more than $200 million at the end of 2022. But his foundation provided the seed money, his top advisers are leading the venture and Musk’s influence is everywhere.

The initial curriculum, which The Texas Newsroom obtained from the state through a public records request, pulls heavily from a Montessori-inspired playbook of “individualized exploration” and the school’s website promises students a course of study delivered in a “progressive learning environment” focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).

Even the name, “Ad Astra,” sounds like something Musk would dream up. It means “to the stars” in Latin.

This isn’t the first time Musk has waded into the education world. He started programs for his and his employees’ kids in the past. But what starts here with Ad Astra promises to be Musk’s biggest foray into education to date, and, if successful, will add to his already massive footprint in Central Texas.

Elon Musk’s educational philosophy

This is not Musk’s first school — and not even the first under this name.

Years ago, he started an Ad Astra School on the then-SpaceX campus in California. There, some of Musk’s own kids reportedly learned alongside the children of SpaceX employees and some other high-profile Los Angeles kids in an environment Ars Technica described as “closer to a venture capital incubator than a traditional school.”

Josh Dahn, who co-founded Ad Astra at SpaceX, now runs a fully online version of the venture called Astra Nova. This “experimental school” serves kids 10-15 years old and offers such courses as Mathematical Biology and Poetry for Scientists.

Ad Astra then moved its operations to Texas, according to the school’s 2021 nonprofit paperwork. The school’s now-defunct website, accessed through the Wayback Machine, says it opened in Brownsville in that year and aimed at “disrupting the traditional education model.”

Musk was listed as the principal officer for that nonprofit. Its paperwork says the school ceased operations in June 2023.

Musk has long been wary of the conventional education system, which he has said fails to create problem-solvers and independent thinkers.

“I just didn’t see that the regular schools were doing the things that I thought should be done,” Musk said in 2015, according to Ars Technica. “So I thought, well let’s see what we can do. Maybe creating a school will be better.”

But, recently, he has become more and more publicly critical of the conventional school model.

Musk now says the American education system has been broken for a century, blaming in part a perceived over-investment in administrative staff. He regularly rails against what he calls “woke mind virus,” a vague concept that liberal thinking breeds an overreliance on political correctness as opposed to truth, and says public school teachers are peddling it.

His criticisms come as public schools, especially in Texas, have been targeted by conservative pundits and politicians. Gov. Greg Abbott, echoing some of Musk’s own gripes, has made it a priority this year to allow parents to use tax dollars to send their kids to private and religious schools.

Abbott himself supports Musk’s foray into the education world. In 2023, the governor posted on X, “At least they will be educating students on skills actually applicable in the workforce rather than pushing woke ideologies.”

Ad Astra School in Bastrop

Ad Astra School in Bastrop County is already open.

It is located at the corner of FM-969 and Earhardt Road, about 45 minutes from downtown Austin, in a portion of unincorporated Bastrop County. Just down the road is a tree farm.

Musk’s corporate compound is less than five minutes away.

The compound houses SpaceX and Starlink offices, the headquarters for Musk’s tunneling business, the Boring Company, and the soon-to-be-home of X (formerly Twitter). Also on site is Hyperloop Plaza, a public gathering space with a convenience store, bar and barber shop, and Snailbrook, a small enclave of homes for Musk employees.

The Texas Newsroom requested a tour and interview with school leaders and did not receive a response. But during a visit to the site last week, a security guard said students are already enrolled and classes have started.

The small white farmhouse that is home to the school appears to have been revamped, with new-looking windows, roof and ramp. There is a small playground and child-sized basketball court in the back of the property.

A security doorbell system confirmed the location as “Ad Astra.”

An Austin-based LLC owns the school’s property. It’s linked to the X Foundation, a nonprofit with a mission “to create an independent primary and secondary school and, ultimately, a university dedicated to education at the highest level.”

It’s unclear where the university may be built, if it comes to fruition.

The nonprofit’s paperwork says the endeavor will start with a school in Bastrop with future “plans to expand based on the needs of the local community and on a timeline that provides for quality education and overall experience.”

Musk’s name was not on the X Foundation’s most recent annual filings but it counted among its assets 736,500 shares of Tesla Inc. stock. The nonprofit received about $100 million in seed money from Musk’s charity, according to the Musk Foundation’s 2022 filings.

Bloomberg first reported this news.

Jared Birchall, who is both Musk’s wealth manager and the CEO of his company Neuralink, is the LLC’s manager and the school’s CEO, according to the school’s child care application and state business filings. An emergency evacuation plan for the school names Boring Company operational manager Jehn Balajadia as the facilities manager.

Calls and emails to Birchall and Balajadia, as well as to Musk’s Bastrop-based companies and the teachers affiliated with the school, were not returned.

The X Foundation’s board includes Birchall, California-based tax attorney Steven Chidester and Ronald Gong, the managing partner of a Silicon Valley wealth management company.

Since it is private, the state’s education agency said it did not have more information about Ad Astra. But the school was approved as a licensed child care program in November, according to a spokesperson with Texas Health and Human Services.

HHS gave The Texas Newsroom Ad Astra’s application, which included curriculum, staffing lists and indoor photographs. The documents show the effort is being led by Gregory Jan Marick, the CEO of education company Xplor, which has already opened a Montessori school in Hawaii.

Ad Astra’s Curriculum

Ad Astra is “centered around hands-on, project-based learning, where children are encouraged to explore, experiment, and discover solutions to real-world problems,” according to its website.

It is not a Montessori school. But documents filed with the state show the school’s goals appear to align with the five core components of a Montessori education.

1. Uninterrupted work periods: The school’s daily schedule shows a three-hour uninterrupted work period from 8:30-11:30, according to a proposed school calendar. During this time, children can choose an activity from the curriculum that satisfies “their natural curiosity and affinity for exploration.” There is another optional hour-and-a-half-long work period in the afternoon.
2. Child-directed work: Independence and exploration are emphasized at every level. For example, the afternoon work period is for children who don’t want to nap. There are also two unstructured 45-minute outdoor play times.
3. Use of Montessori materials: Invoices included with the school’s permit shows more than $21,000 has been spent on materials from Nienhius, a prominent Montessori materials company.
4. Multi-age classroom: While its application notes the school is for children 6 or under, the website indicates it can accommodate ages 3-9.
5. Trained Montessori teachers: Two educators with Montessori backgrounds, Joana Fowler and James Lu, were hired last summer, according to personnel records included in the application. The documents show Fowler, the school’s director who is also referred to as Regula Fowler-Fraefel, previously worked in Idaho. Lu, also called Jin Lu, is a former Chinese television reporter who has worked in U.S. Montessori schools, including in Cedar Park, for a decade.

The curriculum is broken up into three-year blocks “that correspond with planes of development.” Kids have a unique ability to absorb knowledge quickly and effortlessly from ages 3 to 6, the curriculum states.

In this stage, kids will learn about language, math, geometry, history, geography, science, technology, music, art and PE. They will also be introduced to “social and emotional” concepts like environmental and cultural awareness, as well as practical life skills like sweeping, buttoning and folding clothes, according to the curriculum.

The school’s application indicates students will receive a daily snack but that no full meals or transportation will be provided. In its current form, Ad Astra can accommodate 21 students, according to its permit.

Jai Brisbon, executive director of Texas Education and Advocacy for Montessori, said the curriculum is not detailed enough to determine whether the program absolutely fits Montessori best practices.

“But the buckets are in alignment with the albums that you would receive in your Montessori training,” she said, referring to the notes Montessori teachers take during the process of becoming certified.

Brisbon pointed out Musk isn’t the only billionaire interested in Montessori-style education. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has already opened several schools in Texas.

According to the Ad Astra website, tuition will be subsidized for the 2024-25 school year.

After that it’s unclear how much the school may cost but “tuition will be in line with local private schools that include an extended day program,” the website states.

Similar Montessori programs in the Austin area run around $20,000 a year.

Disclosure: Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.