Comment by zpeti
1 month ago
I remember Elon saying in an interview recently that the only piece of the vertical stack he doesn't own is chips.
I strongly suspect some sort of fab built by Elon associated companies will be announced soon. Almost all supply can be bought by Tesla and xAI.
It makes sense, IF he can get the tech to work at the bleeding edge. But he seems to be quite good at this.
He hasn't offered any production services to third parties whatsoever (seems to end at patents/standards gifting) - I wouldn't expect a fab open to third parties at all - if anything it'll be reserved for tesla/space-x/x.ai usage and candidly I don't think there's enough demand there to justify the capex involved in a fab.
Fab costs follow Rock's Law which is that the cost of building a fab doubles every 4 years.
Right now, it costs TSMC roughly $25-$40b for each N2 fab. It's going to cost $50b - $80b for an A14 fab 4 years from now. And then $100b - $160b again.
You need many customers in order to justify the cost. Tesla and xAI themselves won't be enough.
Standing up a modern-node EUVL fab is harder than rocket science. Tesla and xAI don't have the capex to do it, and the silicon they manufacture would be competing against much more experienced fabs like Samsung and Intel.
Frankly it is hopeless, I would be dumbfounded if Elon ever walked through the doors of ASML.