Elon Musk Is Opening a School for Young Students. Here’s What We Know About It

Will his philosophy that education should be like “a video game” influence the Trump K-12 agenda?

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has tried to revolutionize space travel, the electric vehicle industry, and social media.

Next up on his list? School.

Musk’s Texas-based private school—Ad Astra, meaning “to the stars” in Latin—has been in development for the past year. Last week, the state child-care regulator granted its permit for the site’s preschool to open in Bastrop, Texas, a city outside Austin that is home to a base for Musk’s company, SpaceX, Fortune reported.

The school’s website states that it is accepting applications for the current, 2024-25 academic year for both the preschool, open to children ages 3-6, and the lower-elementary school, open to children ages 6-9. It’s unclear if the lower elementary school is operational as of November.

With Ad Astra, Musk is part of a long line of tech entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and other celebrities who have started their own education ventures. Among the notable celebrity school founders: LeBron James, Pitbull, and Andre Agassi.

Musk himself opened a separate elementary school, also called Ad Astra, in Hawthorne, Calif., in 2014, which served his own children and several other children of SpaceX employees. Its only directive from Musk when it was founded a decade ago: “Make it great,” according to Josh Dahn, a founding teacher at the school.

After the California-based Ad Astra closed in 2020, faculty there launched an independent, online-only school called Astra Nova, New York Magazine reported.

Will Elon Musk’s vision for education influence Trump’s agenda for schools?

But now that the Tesla CEO has assumed a role in President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, it’s an open question how Musk’s vision for the Texas school may fit into broader plans for K-12 policy.

Ad Astra did not respond to a request for comment sent through the school’s contact form.

Musk, who Trump tapped to co-lead a new federal “Department of Government Efficiency,” has voiced support for the future president’s goal of abolishing the U.S. Department of Education. And he has provocative views about pedagogy: Education should be “as close to a video game as possible,” Musk has said.

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