Musk rules out TSMC role in Texas Terafab project

Elon Musk said his business empire would build and operate Terafab independently, quashing speculation about industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) swooping in to run his ambitious chipmaking venture.

Based in Texas, the Terafab project is Musk’s effort to break into the business of fabricating chips, in service of his companies Tesla Inc and SpaceXAI. While Musk had said that he was in discussions with TSMC, the trillionaire clarified in an X post yesterday that the only matter under consideration is for TSMC potentially leasing some part of the planned site and would not involve any operational role.

“Maybe TSMC subleases part of the Terafab if they want, but nothing more than that,” Musk said in a response to a video posted on his social network.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends the Viva Technology conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 16, 2023.

Photo: Reuters

TSMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Intel Corp is helping Musk’s companies with developing the technology that would go inside the Terafab. The US chipmaker would continue its involvement in Terafab, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said prior to an event in Tokyo commemorating the US company’s 50th year of operations in Japan on Tuesday.

Terafab is expected to supply advanced semiconductors for the needs of Musk’s empire, across the Tesla carmaking and robotics business and the consolidated SpaceXAI that includes spacefaring technology and the xAI group developing Grok. Musk said that his companies would “build and run the fab.”

TSMC, for its part, is weighing an expansive new chipmaking campus in Texas, Bloomberg News reported last week. If it decides to proceed with expansion in Texas, that would add to the state’s growing base of chipmaking expertise and capacity, as it has Samsung Electronics Co developing a plant there as well as the Terafab project.