Elon Musk’s Planned Texas Fiefdom Is a Billionaire Tradition

Centuries after fiefdoms were dismantled in most parts of the world, vestiges can still be found in the backyards of billionaires.

In a rural county just east of Austin, Texas, Elon Musk is assembling his very own town, with new streets, recreational facilities, a school and subsidized housing for employees of Tesla Inc., SpaceX and the Boring Co., the Wall Street Journal reported last week. If approved, the municipality would occupy thousands of acres he’s personally acquired in recent years.

The project is an attempted fix for the age-old dilemma of how to provide affordable housing for workers, though taken to an extreme. It’s the type of ...