By Kiel Porter | Updated on Oct 12, 2026 at 01:47 AM
Elon Musk said he thinks his companies would probably “figure out how to make chips better than anyone” given their expertise in creating customized equipment.
Musk told a gathering of customers and investors outside Tesla Inc.’s gigafactory in Austin, Texas, that while he currently has “no idea how to make microchips, we’ll figure it out.” Appearing at the X Takeover event via livestream Saturday, he said that on tours of competitors’ facilities he hadn’t seen much customized equipment, which he said his companies had a lot of experience in making, enabling them to improve the manufacturing process.
“I think it is accurate to say it’s one of the hardest things to do in the world,” Musk said. “I don’t want to be complacent or entitled or anything, but, I think probably we’ll figure out how to make chips better than anyone. Honestly. I don’t know how long it’s going to take us to do that. It might take us quite a few years.”
Building a cutting-edge chipmaking operation is a formidable undertaking. Advanced semiconductor manufacturing requires highly specialized equipment, materials and expertise, while leading producers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have spent decades refining their processes and invest tens of billions of dollars annually to stay ahead.
The goal, Musk said, was to be able to speed up the chip-design iteration process to have engineers to test more designs allowing for “a much faster rate of advancement.”
He said that it typically takes two years for “one significant chip design,” adding that from “startup design to volume fabrication — two years is considered very fast.”
“And it’s like well, OK, well, but we wanna do more like 10 designs per year,” he said, noting that some of those design iterations “won’t work out.”
Musk is preparing to build a Terafab factory in Grimes, Texas, via a joint venture between his companies Tesla and SpaceX alongside Intel Corp., with an initial investment of more than $15 billion.
Read More: SpaceX to Build Natural Gas Power Plants for Texas Chip Factory
The project, which is expected to create 3,000 jobs, will receive a Texas Enterprise Fund grant of $30 million. The 100-million-square-foot facility will be constructed in phases on a footprint of roughly 3,000 acres, but SpaceX has more than 13,000 acres currently under its control.
SpaceX, which went public in June, recently moved back above its $135 initial public offering share price, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire. The company is nearing a deal with investment firm Grain Management LLC to acquire the spectrum needed to turn the company into a mobile carrier able to compete with T-Mobile US Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc.
Tesla reported better-than-expected sales for the third quarter, delivering 486,532 vehicles worldwide in the period, according to a statement Friday. That compared with 463,761 expected on average among analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The results are encouraging for Tesla following a period of declining auto sales and a lagging stock price. The company is planning to spend more than $25 billion this year to build out its factory operations and stand up the robotaxi business, with $30 billion of new loans and credit lines secured to support growth.
X Takeover also featured appearances from the musician Nicki Minaj and Musk’s mother, Maye.