Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s chief executive, at the company’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California, on his first day in the role in March 2025. Credit: Intel Corporation Intel will keep working with Elon Musk on Terafab, his project to make advanced chips in Texas, chief executive Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg. Tan made the comments before a Tokyo event on Wednesday celebrating 50 years of Intel’s operations in Japan. His comments come after a week of reports that Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, could join the project.
The TSMC talks were first reported on October 2 by Culpium, a newsletter run by tech journalist Tim Culpan. Citing unnamed sources, the report said TSMC was exploring ways to help operate Terafab’s planned factories in Texas. Musk replied the next day, posting on X under a screenshot of the report. “Just discussions, but something may come of it,” he wrote. In a follow-up piece, Culpium also reported that Intel’s own work on Terafab was not making progress.
Tan’s remarks to Bloomberg suggest Intel intends to remain involved regardless. Intel signed on in April as Terafab’s first named partner, saying it would help design, make, and package chips for the project. Musk had launched Terafab a month earlier as a joint effort of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, which has since merged into SpaceX. Since then, plans for the plant have moved forward.
In August, SpaceX and Tesla named Grimes County, Texas, about an hour from Houston, as the site and committed $16.8bn to a first phase. Musk wants the plant to produce enough chips to power one terawatt of computing power per year. At the same time, TSMC has been weighing a new campus in Texas. According to Culpium, Terafab could become the anchor customer for such a factory.
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