Hardware for Cyberpunk: SpaceX and Tesla Build $16.8B Terafab Chip Plant in Texas

Elon Musk is definitively pulling his corporations out of the global supply chain, creating a closed, sovereign production loop. On August 7, 2026, SpaceX and Tesla announced the construction of a joint `Terafab` factory in Grimes County, Texas. Initial investments are $16.8 billion, with potential growth up to $119 billion.

The scale of the project is overwhelming: the factory's area will exceed 100 million square feet. Terafab's goal is complete import substitution and independence from Asian foundries (TSMC, Samsung). The plant will stamp out specialized silicon chips for Optimus humanoid robots, Cybercabs, and SpaceX's orbital AI data centers. This is the highest form of vertical integration: Musk plans to control the process from silicon smelting to neural network inference in space. If Terafab reaches its design capacity, Tesla and SpaceX will become invulnerable to any geopolitical embargoes and logistical crises.

Source: SpaceX / Tesla / AI Weekly