{"id":50059,"date":"2026-05-06T13:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T13:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/we-now-have-a-price-tag-for-elon-musks-ambitious-texas-chip-project\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T13:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T13:01:11","slug":"we-now-have-a-price-tag-for-elon-musks-ambitious-texas-chip-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/we-now-have-a-price-tag-for-elon-musks-ambitious-texas-chip-project\/","title":{"rendered":"We now have a price tag for Elon Musk&#8217;s ambitious Texas chip project"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/69fb2b3a5edd94d1e7339ac7?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Elon Musk onstage at the World Economic Forum.\"\/><figcaption>Elon Musk has an ambitious plan to build a semiconductor factory.<\/p>\n<p>WEF<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Construction of Elon Musk&#039;s Texas chip factory is projected to cost up to $119 billion.<\/li>\n<li>The Terafab project aims to supply AI chips for Musk&#039;s companies.<\/li>\n<li>Morgan Stanley analysts had previously estimated the Terafab would cost $45 billion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>SpaceX just shared the estimated construction cost of Elon Musk&#039;s ambitious chip factory in Texas \u2014 and it&#039;s higher than analysts&#039; predictions.<\/p>\n<p>The Terafab project could initially cost $55 billion and rise to $119 billion if additional phases are constructed, according to a public notice posted on the Grimes County website.<\/p>\n<p>Musk announced the joint project between his companies, SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla, in March. His goal is for the Terafab to produce critical AI chips for Tesla&#039;s robotaxis and Optimus robot.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;SpaceX proposes construction of a multi-phase, next-generation, vertically integrated semiconductor manufacturing and advanced computing fabrication facility, which would represent a transformative investment in domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity,&quot; the Grimes County document states.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed location for the Terafab site is the Gibbons Creek Reservoir in rural Texas, the notice said. The reservoir is about 100 miles from Tesla&#039;s HQ in Austin and close to College Station, home of Texas A&amp;M University.<\/p>\n<p>County Commissioners will meet on June 3 to consider approval of a property tax abatement for the project, it added.<\/p>\n<p>The price tag is notably higher than analysts&#039; estimates, which had already raised questions about how SpaceX and Tesla would pay for the moonshot project.<\/p>\n<p>Morgan Stanley analysts estimated in March that a factory capable of producing chips at the scale Musk had previously suggested could cost up to $45 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts have also said that the Terafab project would face challenges outside the capital cost, such as securing specialist technical talent.<\/p>\n<p>Since Musk unveiled Terafab in March, the project has announced US chip giant Intel as a partner and listed job ads for the moonshot, including one role with a base salary of up to $240,000.<\/p>\n<p>It comes as SpaceX is preparing for what&#039;s expected to be the largest IPO in history, with its public filings expected to reveal more details about Terafab.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk has an ambitious plan to build a semiconductor factory. WEF Construction of Elon Musk&#039;s Texas chip factory is projected to cost up to $119 billion. The Terafab project aims to supply AI chips for Musk&#039;s companies. Morgan Stanley analysts had previously estimated the Terafab would cost $45 billion. SpaceX just shared the estimated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}