Elon Musk is spotted with his youngest son at the annual Sombrero Festival in Brownsville
Elon Musk is fast becoming a real Texan.
Over the weekend, the SpaceX founder and recent Texas resident was spotted carrying his youngest son at an annual event in Brownsville that celebrates Texas and Mexican culture known as the Sombrero Festival.
In a video posted on social media, someone at the festival is seen handing Musk an spiropapa, a fried potato sliced into a spiral on a stick. Musk takes several bites and appears to contemplate the flavor before moving on.
In addition to trying the food, Musk posed for photographs and walked the festival grounds with Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr.
“We tried to keep moving because it became apparent that everyone wanted to take a photo with him and it was going to get out of hand quickly,” Treviño told the Brownsville Herald. “It was so neat to see the reaction and faces, especially of the kids who were recognizing who he was and saying or asking, ‘Is that Elon Musk?’”
SpaceX is developing spacecraft prototypes in Boca Chica beach, just outside of Brownsville. Musk founded the company in 2002 and, in more recent years, has chose the Rio Grande Valley location as the testbed for his Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket that are being designed to carry people to the moon, Mars and beyond.
Musk originally agreed to attend Charro Days earlier this month during a presentation at the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica when a reporter asked if he would go. The Sombrero Festival takes place during the Charro Days festivities in the South Texas City.
SpaceX was also a sponsor of the festival and had a float in the Charro Days parade. Images posted on social media show company employees in traditional Mexican clothing standing around one of Starship’s methane-fueled Raptor engines.
Musk’s appearance at the Sombrero Festival wasn’t his first attempt at a Texas tradition.
During a conference call in January to discuss Tesla’s fourth-quarter earnings, Musk said he took his children to H-E-B during the early days of the pandemic to see if people were really panic-buying toilet paper, the Express-News reported.
This was reportedly before he became a Texas resident.
Musk personally relocated to the Austin area from Los Angeles, where he had lived for two decades. He also officially moved Tesla to Austin in December.