Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI
- Elon Musk made news with plans for a new college, but a grade school and high school come first.
- Texas has few regulations on kids' schools; outside accreditation takes years but isn't required.
- Musk's Ad Astra School quietly moved to Texas, joining other tech-centric "microschools."
Elon Musk is launching a new private K-12 school in Texas — potentially as soon as this summer — focusing on science, technology, engineering, and math.
With the loose regulations of Texas' private educational system and his vast wealth, the billionaire entrepreneur is positioned to quickly become a player in the booming ecosystem of alternative "microschools" in Austin.
The school is part of Musk's mysterious new nonprofit The Foundation, which has generated buzz for its plans to eventually build a futuristic university. But experts say its proposals for a K-12 school could materialize much faster. Texas is one of 17 states that don't require private schools to be accredited, licensed, or approved, according to the most recent federal 50-state analysis done in 2009.
Combine that with an influx of high-earning families into Austin and Musk's star power and wealth, and it may be enough for Musk's school to begin classes in a matter of months.
"He just needs enough time to recruit students and recruit faculty for a venture like this," said Charles Evans, a consultant who used to run an Austin prep school, who predicts the school could be in session by summer.
"Obviously, the publicity will be something that he doesn't have to pay extra for," said Scott Griggs, who runs the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest. "It's going to give them an advantage out of the gate, without question."
It's not clear if the school has picked a campus or hired any teachers. But Austin parents are already wondering what the school might look like, according to Teri Sperry, who consults with parents and runs the website Alt Ed Austin, which spotlights the metro area's large number of private schools taking a different tack to education.
"I think some parents will gravitate toward his school, based on his involvement alone, without asking a lot of questions," she said. "Others will automatically shy away."
Elon Musk already has a school in Texas
The Foundation — which, according to Texas business records, also uses the name The X Foundation — was created in 2021 and was certified as a nonprofit earlier this year. In a tax form published by Bloomberg, the nonprofit said it planned to spend about $8.9 million by the end of the year ending in June 2024 and to hire 11 faculty and have 50 students enrolled by that time.
The tax form says Musk's university will eventually mix in-person and virtual instruction with "hands-on learning experience including simulations, case studies, fabrication/design projects, and labs." But despite opening first, it's silent about what the lower schools will teach, other than saying they'll focus on STEM.
Musk's previous forays into education may offer a clue to his plans. In 2014, while living in California, Musk pulled his children out of their private school and hired a teacher to launch Ad Astra School, whose students were mostly children of SpaceX employees.
While Ad Astra evolved into a mostly online program called Astra Nova that teaches about 200 kids, the original school, Ad Astra, still exists, despite reports of its closure. It is attended by children of SpaceX workers at the Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, according to Josh Dahn, who co-founded Ad Astra and currently leads Astra Nova. It does not appear in a state database of accredited private schools. According to an IRS filing, the Texas school enrolled 16 kids in the 2021-2022 school year.
"We need more great schools; particularly audacious ones," Dahn said in an emailed response to questions. "Most schools spend 180 days a year executing a curriculum that no one really believes in. The Foundation schools will not have that problem."
According to a tax form, Ad Astra's school in Texas follows the Acton Academy model. Acton was started in Austin in 2009 by Jeff Sandefer, an oil millionaire, and his wife Laura, and has since grown to include more than 300 small schools. Rather than teachers lecturing to students, the schools' curriculums feature Socratic discussions supplemented by tech-centric, independent learning using video lessons.
Austin is a laboratory for private schools
The University of Austin, a new school spearheaded by journalist Bari Weiss, has raised $200 million and captured a good amount of media attention. Its president attributed a third of its fundraising to tech and venture-capital executives like Palantir cofounder Jon Lonsdale.
But alternative private primary and secondary schools in Austin have also sprung up, even if they haven't been as well-funded or well-covered.
Sperry said the proliferation in microschools started before the COVID-19 pandemic, partly driven by Austin's burgeoning tech set thinking about how to do education differently. Others started as "learning pods" set up in 2020 that have continued and grown, she said.
Most of the 42 schools on Sperry's website charge tuition of $10,000 to $20,000 a year. At least one — the Long-View Micro School — focuses on math. Nearly all of them are small; only four have more than 100 students, and some have fewer than 10. About half of them are accredited, Sperry said.
"A lot of people see great benefits in smaller schools, smaller classes, smaller student-teacher ratios than the traditional systems offer," she said. "I think in general it's a good thing if we have many smaller schools rather than fewer bigger schools."
Musk isn't the first tech billionaire to invest in education. In 2015, investors including Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz and an entity linked to Mark Zuckerberg poured money into AltSchool, a group of schools started in San Francisco led by a former Googler named Max Ventilla who pitched using technology to personalize each student's education.
It didn't work out. By 2017, some of AltSchool's locations had closed, and some parents complained that their kids were "guinea pigs." By 2019, the firm rebranded as Altitude and pivoted to focus on software. What remains of AltSchool eventually became a nonprofit consultancy.
AltSchool struggled because it tried to crack into established markets like New York City, said Graham Frey, who led Austin's Alpha School and now runs an incubator for startup schools called the Hallcraft School Studio.
Austin has established private schools that resemble elite coastal schools like Harvard-Westlake or Dalton. But the market is simply less saturated, Frey said, and Austin has lots of entrepreneurial parents of young children who are open to new models.
Frey is astounded by how many successful parents who went to traditional schools now want alternative schooling for their kids."They went to a good high school, they went to a good university, they got a good job and yet they want to do something different with their children," he said.
Musk, who benefits from wealth, publicity, and a permissive regulatory environment, may be poised to take advantage.
He also has a large network of fans and employees in the Austin area, noted Dahn, the Astra Nova leader. "Ad Astra never had more than 50 students at SpaceX headquarters, but The Foundation's schools can draw from the critical mass of Tesla, SpaceX, and Boring Company employees living in and around Austin," he said.