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Musk says he’s building Terafab chip plant in Austin, Texas

The Verge / 3/22/2026

📰 NewsIndustry & Market Moves

Key Points

  • Elon Musk announced plans to build a Terafab chip fabrication plant in Austin, Texas, to be jointly run by Tesla and SpaceX.
  • The plant aims to produce chips at scale for robotics, artificial intelligence, and space-based data centers across Musk’s companies.
  • The project underscores ongoing concerns about AI-era chip demand and the enormous capital, time, and equipment required for fab fabrication.
  • Bloomberg notes Musk has no background in semiconductor production and has a history of over-promising on timelines.
  • If realized, Terafab could influence the U.S. chip manufacturing landscape and AI compute capabilities, signaling a major industry move.
Elon Musk looking confused over a bunch of question marks.
Grok, how do you make chips? | Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

Elon Musk announced plans to build a Terafab plant in Austin, Texas, that will be jointly run by Tesla and SpaceX. The goal is to eventually build chips at scale for robotics, artificial intelligence, and space-based data centers for Musk's various companies.

Musk has expressed concern, as have other executives, about the chip industry's ability to keep up with demand as the AI industry has boomed. But building a chip fabrication plant is complex, requires billions of dollars, many years, and a ton of specialized equipment. And, as Bloomberg points out, Musk "has no background in semiconductor production and a history of over-promising on g …

Read the full story at The Verge.