Startup bro has a modest proposal for Trump: Give me part of Alameda

An aspiring entrepreneur is calling on President Donald Trump to give him 500 acres in Alameda to build “Silicon Valley 2.0” — a proposal that caught city leaders entirely off guard.

James Ingallinera, a self-described “broke startup founder,” launched a company called Frontier Valley this week, declaring in a 13-minute video that he plans to build a “massive jurisdiction for accelerating frontier tech” on the westernmost tip of Alameda.

The project, which Ingallinera describes as “the Manhattan Project of our time,” would feature residential housing, commercial space, and startup offices, and would be independently governed by — in his words — “America’s most badass deep tech founders.”

The site of the proposed complex is Alameda Point, a 512-acre former naval base that has largely been transferred to the city of Alameda for development. In the video, Ingallinera calls on Trump to declare a state of emergency for “ ensuring U.S. supremacy in AI” and hand the land over to Frontier Valley, which will transform it into a “new epicenter for Silicon Valley innovation.”

The city, however, says it was unaware of the plan.

Sarah Henry, communications director for the city, told The Standard that Alameda officials have “not been contacted by Frontier Valley about its website with drawings that include Alameda Point.” She added that the city is already working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to develop a congressionally authorized medical facility on the land, and with the East Bay Regional Park District to develop a 158-acre park next to the facility. 

“No reasonable fact supports the proposed declaration of emergency at Alameda Point,” Henry said. “The city is in full support of the VA facility and regional park project, which will serve Bay Area veterans, residents, and visitors for many decades to come.”

Ingallinera did not respond to a request for comment.

The proposal, first reported by the blog “The Nerd Reich,” appears to take inspiration from the Silicon Valley movement to create “startup cities” or “network states” — independently governed jurisdictions with reduced regulations and extreme privatization. The movement’s proponents — which include tech figures like Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel — have already broken ground on a legally dubious startup city in Honduras and proposed others in Greenland and Nigeria. Praxis, another startup city company that has yet to build anything, recently proposed constructing a “defense-focused spaceport city” near San Luis Obispo.

Trump has shown support for the movement, proposing on the campaign trail to create 10 so-called “freedom cities” on federal land. Some suggested using the Presidio as the site of one such city, after Trump ordered drastic cuts to the park’s trust.

Frontier Valley, however, would be no mere freedom city. According to Ingallinera, the purpose of the jurisdiction would be to accelerate AI development and technological progress in order to “blow past China” to ensure “technological supremacy.” 

A mockup of the city, which looks suspiciously AI-generated, features spaceships flying among futuristic-looking skyscrapers and rolling green hills. Ingallinera claims the development would feature 3 million square feet of office space for startups, as well as “fully automated residential communities” with a “ nearly fully robotic labor force” for upward of 10,000 people.

“This is how we beat China,” he says in the video, over a rising, cinematic score. “We win by unleashing the full essence of what makes America great by enabling quantum-leap breakthroughs so momentous they don’t just render supply chains obsolete, they render entire empires obsolete.”

In the video, Ingallinera stands on Alameda island with the San Francisco skyline in the background, clad in a suit jacket and slightly undone button-down. Gesticulating forcefully but not entirely naturally, like a robot trying to conduct an orchestra, he calls on Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Elon Musk for their help in green-lighting the project. (The video was presumably made before Trump and Musk’s dramatic falling out.) 

Through a complicated process that involves transferring the land to the Department of Defense and using a national security exemption to the Endangered Species Act to overturn its designation as a nature preserve, Ingallinera claims, Trump can hand the land over to Frontier Valley and set off an “American renaissance” that would create “ a thousand new Elons.”

It may prove trickier than that. The Navy still owns some parcels of land, but the city has been managing the redevelopment of the point for decades, since the closing of the naval base. Alameda Councilmember Tony Daysog told The Standard the understanding is that the Navy will work with the city on redevelopment, rather than forking the land over to a rogue developer. “That would be upsetting if that happened, because we certainly have put in a plan for Alameda Point that’s been in place almost 30 years now,” Daysog said.

The council member also questioned whether the land in question — a former airstrip — is solid enough to support such a development. “Practically all of Alameda Point is landfill,” he said. “Imagine the amount of pilings that would be required to hold up a building — it would certainly make it cost prohibitive.”

While the promo video is heavy on swaggering idealism, tech jargon, and dramatic music, it is light on technical specifics — and on who would pay for the development. In the FAQs section, the company claims it will be financed by a combination of government money and “cost-sharing arrangements with major technology companies,” though no specific companies are mentioned. 

It is also unclear who else is behind the project. Ingallinera’s previous job experience consists of a six-month stint as an analyst at Bain Capital followed by almost a decade as CEO of a coliving space for tech entrepreneurs called Tribe Coliving. According to his LinkedIn profile, Ingallinera left Tribe Coliving in 2023, and it has since rebranded as Hive (perhaps in an attempt to outrun a 2019 Telegraph article that described its shared bathrooms as more like “toilet cabinets.”)

Perhaps Ingallinera’s biggest claim to fame is going viral for a tweet in which he proclaimed that it is a “social death sentence” to support Trump, but he would continue to voice his support “publicly and unabashedly, social and financial consequences be damned.” 

Frontier Valley’s announcement caused a stir on an Alameda Facebook group, where residents puzzled over how a private entrepreneur could take over the land and asked how they could fight the proposal. One resident called it “the dumbest, most tech-brained garbage idea I’ve ever heard of,” adding, “Who are these drooling morons?” 

“They couldn’t have picked a less trustworthy looking spokesperson to pitch this,” another wrote. “He’s exactly how I would cast him tbh,” replied a neighbor. “Never seen someone look the part of Network State grifter harder.” 

Despite his lack of experience in development, Ingallinera seems to have anticipated some of the backlash. At the end of his video, he asks supporters to help him “push back as hard as we possibly can against any and all resistance that this project will face.”

“We are asking you to fight alongside us in the greatest battle that ever has been and ever will be fought for the future of the human race,” he says. “ The fight for the future of America and for the entire human race is officially on.”