Terafab now has dates. The chip fab Tesla and SpaceX are building in Texas is aiming to make its first working test chip in "approximately May or June of next year" and to reach volume production "around Q3 of '28," Elon Musk said on SpaceX's third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, answering Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas.

The timeline

  • May or June 2027: a first test chip, "just a kind of SRAM chip or something to basically test the line," at the research fab in Austin, according to the call transcript.
  • Q3 2028: the aspiration for volume production at the main Terafab site at Gibbons Creek in Grimes County, Texas. Musk said that outcome is "at least in the set of possible outcomes for Q3 or Q4 of '28."

Musk hedged heavily. "We're just figuring out chip fabrication," he said, adding that he puts "big error bars" on the internal targets and calling them "insanely fast timeframes for chip production." He thanked ASML and other suppliers "in accelerating equipment deliveries," and said SpaceX has "some significant potential breakthroughs in chip fabrication" that he would not discuss. He did not directly confirm whether SpaceX has ordered EUV lithography machines, which Jonas asked about.

The long-term goal, he said, is for Terafab "to make a terawatt of superintelligence chips per year." Earlier Tuesday Musk posted on X that "the value of Terafab's output will place it in the top 20 of country GDP in a single building."

Building a supply chain

Korean trade outlet The Elec reported this month that Terafab staff visited about 10 Korean suppliers' booths at SEMICON West in San Francisco and that more than half have signed nondisclosure agreements. HPSP has agreed to supply one high-pressure hydrogen annealing tool for the research line, and Hanmi Semiconductor is discussing thermocompression bonders, according to The Elec and Crypto Briefing.

Texas says Phase 1 of the Grimes County project involves at least $16.8 billion of investment and 3,000 jobs. Our Terafab tracker follows each milestone with sources.

What it means for Tesla

Terafab is a joint Tesla-SpaceX project, and the Austin research fab Musk mentioned is the line where the first test chip is due. On the same call he listed "chip design, the Terafab" among the reasons he thinks a Tesla-SpaceX merger "would be a good idea" (merger story). Tesla reports its third quarter on Wednesday, Oct. 21, when investors may get its own Terafab update.