• Elon Musk is funding a new private preschool in Texas called Ad Astra.
• It's set to open its doors this year for children aged three to nine.
• The school is focused on STEM-based learning and has long-term goals to expand into a university.

Elon Musk is expanding his reach as he launches his newest venture: early childhood education.

Located in Bastrop, Texas, Ad Astra is a private preschool that is accepting applications for children aged three to nine. The school's website said that Ad Astra will subsidize tuition for its opening year, after which costs will be set in line with local private schools.

"Ad Astra's approach to education is centered around hands-on, project-based learning, where children are encouraged to explore, experiment, and discover solutions to real-world problems," the website said, adding that its curriculum will be centered on integrating STEM subjects into the classrooms.

A notice from the Texas Health and Human Services Department said the preschool obtained its initial permit on November 14, officially allowing the school to open in 2025. Per the permit, the preschool can admit up to 21 students in its first year of operation. The school's application materials first obtained by Bloomberg said that the school's long-term goal is expanding into a university focused on STEM learning.

While Musk's name does not appear in any of the school's application materials to the state, his foundation donated $100 million to get the preschool up and running, according to tax filings.

As the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and the owner of the social media website Twitter turned X, Musk is not primarily known for his influence on education. However, this isn't his first investment into the field — in 2014, Musk opened a school also named Ad Astra that he created for his kids and the kids of his SpaceX employees, which stopped its in-person operations after Musk's kids graduated.

It's not uncommon for billionaires to donate to schools and universities. Ad Astra's opening, however, comes at a time when President-elect Donald Trump is taking office for his second term. Musk is a close ally of Trump, tasked with leading a new cost-cutting commission called the Department of Government Efficiency. Amid calls to eliminate the Education Department and give states more control over classrooms, Musk could play a key role in shaping education policy by offering advice to Trump and lawmakers. DOGE does not have the power to make any changes on its own.

"I do think we need significant reform in education," Musk said during a Trump campaign event in October.

"The Department of Education seems to regard as its primary duty foisting propaganda on our children as opposed to getting them a good education. It's insane," Musk said. "The priority should be to teach kids skills that they will find useful later in life and leave any sort of social propaganda out of the classroom."

Ad Astra and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

New priorities for education

Ad Astra's website said it is not a Montessori school, but it operates like one, focusing on child-centered education and individualized lessons. The application form to the school also encourages parental involvement, saying that Ad Astra wants "parents and guardians to be actively involved and share their gifts with the community."

The school's website does not directly reference politics, but Musk, Trump, and other Republican lawmakers' past comments indicate how the GOP would like to shape education under Trump's administration. When Trump announced former wrestling executive Linda McMahon as his education secretary, he wrote in a statement that she would "fight tirelessly to expand 'Choice' to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families."

Reducing the federal Education Department's influence over education has long been a priority for Republican lawmakers. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a series of bills aimed at increasing parents' involvement in classroom curricula and ending "woke" lessons in classrooms.

Trump and Musk's DOGE partner Vivek Ramaswamy have also proposed shutting down the Education Department altogether. Ramaswamy recently blamed the department for kids' poor reading literacy scores.

The emphasis on STEM education at Ad Astra reflects Musk's priorities for hands-on learning that would equip children with the skills he has said they'll need to enter the workforce. McMahon has previously expressed support for workforce education programs, suggesting a focus on teaching kids practical skills could be a priority over the next four years.

Are you a parent interested in enrolling your child at Ad Astra? What priorities do you have for education in the US? Share your thoughts with this reporter at [email protected].

Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee are the latest to restrict access to adult websites

• Business Insider health writer Rachel Hosie struggle to decide whether to get Botox for her wedding.
• She said the decision was made harder by the rise of "undetectable" beauty treatments.
• People increasingly look inexplicably ageless, setting what she sees as even less attainable beauty standards.

Getting engaged a year ago was one of the most special and exciting moments of my life.

But wedding planning has come with some tricky decisions: Should I change my name? Is "Mr Brightside" an acceptable first dance song? And should I get Botox for the first time?

I've changed my mind endlessly: perhaps I'll get just a little something to smooth out the lines that, as a 32-year-old woman, have appeared on my forehead in recent years. "No, actually, I won't," I think.

For every sister-in-law warning against the "weird, shiny texture" Botox can give skin, a gym-mate encourages me to do it because I "won't look back."

I worry that Botox will become yet another expense alongside the mani-pedis, hair coloring, and waxing that are quietly expected of women to live up to patriarchal beauty standards, but my feminist principles are what are really causing me to hesitate.

While some men increasingly feel the pressure to look young, the scrutiny women — particularly those in the public eye — face is unrivaled. By erasing those signs of life, would I be part of the problem in a society that, as Anne-Mette Hermans, who studies the sociology of cosmetic procedures, told me, puts on women "a penalty on looking older"?

Deciding whether to get antiaging treatments like Botox isn't a new problem. Still, it feels harder to avoid as aesthetic treatments and surgeries become more subtle and less detectable and, in turn, make everyone look inexplicably ageless — setting even less attainable beauty standards.

I know that women are valued for looking young

Christine Hall, an aesthetic doctor at London's Taktouk Clinic, told me that since the COVID pandemic, skincare has replaced makeup as the aesthetic focus for many women and girls. This reflects a shift from the heavily made-up look of the mid-2010s — with many celebrities revealing they've had filler removed — toward looking "natural" and effortless.

Of course, by "natural," we mean young.

I've never worn a lot of makeup and am happy to go out and about bare-faced, so I was pleased that societal expectations changed. But the focus shifting from makeup to antiaging just as my first wrinkles appeared made me feel uneasy.

Antiaging has been big business for centuries, as Western cultures traditionally value women for beauty and fertility, which are seen as synonymous with youth. These ideals followed women when they entered the workforce in greater numbers.

"A beautiful appearance, especially for women, can definitely lead to advantages on the relationship market, but also in terms of jobs, in terms of promotions, in terms of so many different things," Hermans, an assistant professor studying cosmetic procedures at the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, said.

Psychologists point to a phenomenon called the "halo effect," where people unconsciously assume an attractive person has positive traits, such as trustworthiness and intelligence. A 2021 study from researchers at the University of Buffalo found that people perceived as attractive "are more likely to get hired, receive better evaluations, and get paid more."

So wanting to cling to our youth makes sense, and I don't shame anyone for having treatments like Botox.

After the FDA approved Botox for cosmetic use in 2002, Gen X started the trend of facial "tweakments" in earnest. It was taken to new heights by millennials amid the rise of social media and filters that made them appear wrinkle-free. The Kardashian-esque "Instagram face" quickly became ubiquitous.

Now, increasing numbers of Gen Zers are getting "baby Botox" in their 20s in the hope of preventing wrinkles. (Some practitioners, however, won't administer Botox to line-free faces as it can actually make people look older and, if done incorrectly, lead to muscle atrophy and sagging).

While the US has tighter regulations around cosmetic treatments than some countries, it's remarkably easy in the UK, where I'm from, to find someone who will administer Botox — whether at a "home salon" or your dentist.

"The idea of tweaking things in your own body and especially the face, it's become far, far more normalized," Hermans said.

Gen Alpha, children born after 2010, is seemingly set to continue down the same path, with the emergence of "Sephora kids" who are as young as 10 and save their pocket money to buy expensive antiaging products they don't need.

"When I was 16 or 17, it was all about blue eyeshadow and putting on as much foundation as possible. And now obviously the trend is kids wanting Drunk Elephant products and acids on their skin," Hall told me.

Commenting more widely on beauty trends, Hall added: "Nobody wants to wear makeup. Everyone wants to have natural, glowing skin." At the same time, aesthetic treatments are "much more acceptable now," she said.

This combination has in part ushered in what's dubbed the "undetectable" era of beauty. In recent months, the faces of Lindsay Lohan, 38, and Christina Aguilera, 44, have been the subjects of online fascination because they suddenly looked dramatically younger without the tell-tale signs of cosmetic treatments.

For the average person who doesn't have the same resources as celebrities, this presents a paradox between wanting the result of treatments to look natural while also making enough of a difference to justify the price tag.

Earlier this year, I tried what I had hoped would be the holy grail of antiaging treatments: "microtox," for a hefty cost of £495 ($657).

Popular in Korea but relatively new in the West, diluted Botox is injected into the skin's surface rather than muscles, preventing a frozen-looking face.

I hoped my skin would be wrinkle-free while maintaining all movement and expression. While my skin glowed, the effect on my fine lines was negligible and wore off over a couple of months.

So, when I look at photos of myself in the run-up to my wedding and wince at my forehead lines, I think, sure, Botox may be contributing to low self-esteem among women, but we can't change the world overnight.

If everyone else is giving in and walking around with shiny, smooth foreheads, maybe I should, too?

I want to look like myself at my wedding

It's now less than six months until my wedding, and considering most people get Botox every three to six months, I've nearly run out of time to do a trial run.

Hermans told me that a big predictor of whether someone will get any kind of aesthetic treatment is whether those in their social circle have done so. None of my close friends have had Botox — yet.

For now, I've decided not to get Botox.

While I may have crinkles and lines on my face, I also know who I am, which I was still working out a decade ago. My face looks like me, lines included. Just as my muscle definition reflects my love of strength training, my forehead lines reflect that I've embraced life.

I still have moments where I catch my reflection in harsh lighting or an action shot photo and don't like what I see. But perhaps reframing how I think about my looks is the answer, not Botox. After all, trying to "fix" everything you dislike about your appearance is an expensive path to go down.

When I'm smiling at my new husband on our wedding day, I want him and everyone else to be able to see my joy — forehead wrinkles and all.