Elon Musk personally defines Terafab: TSMC can at most "sublease a portion," operation is out of the question.

According to Golden Ten Data APP, Elon Musk has announced that his business empire will independently build and operate Terafab, dispelling speculation that industry leader TSMC would take over the operation of his ambitious chip manufacturing project.

The Terafab project, located in Texas, represents Musk’s push into the chip manufacturing sector and aims to serve his companies Tesla (TSLA.US) and SpaceXAI. Although Musk recently indicated he was in discussions with TSMC, the billionaire clarified in a post on the X platform on Wednesday that the only consideration was TSMC possibly leasing part of the planned site, with no involvement in the operations.

“If TSMC is willing, perhaps they can sublease a part of Terafab, but that’s all there is to it,” Musk said in response to a video posted on his social network. TSMC did not immediately respond to requests for comment via email.

U.S. chipmaker Intel is assisting Musk’s companies in developing technology to be used internally at Terafab. The factory is expected to supply advanced semiconductors to meet the needs of Musk’s business empire, covering Tesla’s vehicle and robotics operations, as well as the merged entity SpaceXAI, which integrates aerospace technology and the xAI team responsible for developing Grok. On Wednesday, Musk emphasized that his companies will “build and operate this factory.”

TSMC is currently weighing the construction of a large-scale new chip manufacturing campus in Texas. Key clients of TSMC include U.S. giants Nvidia and Apple, and the company is expanding its production facilities in the United States.

If TSMC goes ahead with the expansion in Texas, it will further boost the state’s growing expertise and production capacity in chip manufacturing — Texas already hosts a Samsung factory locally, in addition to the Terafab project.