Archive · 7 Aug 2026
Musk Says Tesla-SpaceX Terafab 50 Times Pentagon Size
Elon Musk is building a giant factory with his companies Tesla and SpaceX.
The factory is called Terafab, and it makes computer chips.
It will be very, very big, about 50 times bigger than the Pentagon building.
The factory will be built in Texas and cover more than 100 million square feet of space.
Building just the first part will cost $16.8 billion, which is a huge amount of money.
About 3,000 people will work there at first, but many more will come later.
The chips it makes will go into robots, self-driving cars, and computers that work in space.
Texas is helping by giving $30 million, and the factory will get power from gas plants and batteries and water from a nearby lake.
Building it will help make sure there are enough computer chips in the future.
Elon Musk says Terafab, the Tesla-SpaceX semiconductor megaproject, will be 50 times the size of the Pentagon once complete.
The facility, spanning more than 100 million square feet on 3,000 acres, is rising in Grimes County, Texas, about an hour northwest of Houston.
Phase one carries an initial investment of $16.8 billion, with at least 3,000 jobs planned for phase 1 of 10.
Terafab will combine logic, memory, packaging, and testing, targeting more than 1 terawatt of computing power annually for Optimus robots, Cybercabs, and space-based data centers.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott's office granted SpaceX a $30 million Texas Enterprise Fund grant, while the site will use gas-fired power plants and water from Gibbons Creek Reservoir.
- Who
- Elon Musk, along with his companies Tesla and SpaceX.
- What
- A new semiconductor megaproject called Terafab, described as the largest chip manufacturing facility on the planet and 50 times the size of the Pentagon, is formally under construction.
- When
- Construction is formally getting underway; in April the companies broke ground on a precursor research fab on the North Campus of Giga Texas.
- Where
- Grimes County, Texas, about an hour northwest of Houston.
- Why
- To close the gap between global chip supply and Tesla's and SpaceX's future needs for edge computing, inference chips, and space-based data centers.
- Facility
- Terafab
- Location
- Grimes County, Texas (about an hour northwest of Houston)
- Size
- More than 100 million square feet; 50 times the size of the Pentagon
- Land
- 3,000 acres; SpaceX controls over 13,000 surrounding acres
- Initial investment
- $16.8 billion for phase 1
- Jobs
- At least 3,000 for phase 1 of 10
- Target output
- More than 1 terawatt of computing power annually
- State backing
- $30 million Texas Enterprise Fund grant; gas-fired power and Gibbons Creek Reservoir water