Elon Musk’s Texas school opening is delayed after Ad Astra postponed an inspection for a second time

• Elon Musk’s Ad Astra school in Texas faces delays in opening.
• Texas Health and Human Services told BI the Montessori school postponed its site inspection twice.
• Ad Astra, located on a 40-acre former horse ranch, was expected to open this summer.

Elon Musk’s Ad Astra school opening in Texas is getting delayed.

The private school announced in July that it was starting to accept applications for students to join. According to a job listing for a position at the school posted earlier this year, it was scheduled to open this summer.

Ad Astra, however, has delayed a site inspection for a second time in the past two months — a critical step in its application to become a licensed childcare facility.

Ad Astra postponed an initial application site inspection by the Texas Health and Human Services, which was first scheduled for August 27, a spokesperson from the HHSC told Business Insider.

The inspector was set to visit the site to ensure the school complies with HHSC’s rules and minimum standards for operating as a childcare center. However, the HHSC spokesperson said the visit was pushed back to September at the request of Ad Astra.

More recently, the school requested another postponement to October 4, though HHSC did not disclose the reason behind this latest delay.

Ad Astra — which is Latin for “to the stars” — is located in Bastrop, Texas, on a former horse ranch that covers about 40 acres, according to the job listing. It intends to accept students between the ages of three and nine, and its website still states that it will open this fall.

It’s not to be confused with the other Ad Astra School that Musk cofounded in 2014 alongside John Dahn. Musk pulled his children out of their private school and hired a teacher to launch the school, which was mostly attended by children of SpaceX employees.

It has since evolved to become mostly a nonprofit online school. The previous Ad Astra school is now located at SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, and had 16 children enrolled in its 2021-2022 academic year.

Bloomberg reported last year that Musk is also planning to establish a university in Texas, to which he has already donated around $100 million.

Elon Musk and Ad Astra didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.