Musk's team asks suppliers to move at 'light speed' on chipmaking plan

Elon Musk's staff asked silicon manufacturing suppliers to move at "light speed" for the multi-billionaire's new chipmaking complex known as Terafab, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

Musk's staff reportedly approached companies including Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron and Lam Research. ​The team has also asked chip manufacturing partner Samsung Electronics Co. for support, Bloomberg reported, citing undisclosed sources familiar with the matter.

Staff working for Terafab have sought price quotes and ​delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, ​Bloomberg said, adding that in the past few weeks, they've contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and ​other tools.

The goal is to begin silicon manufacturing ​by 2029 and then scale up, Bloomberg added.

Terafab, a vertically integrated semiconductor foundry Musk envisioned in March, will be jointly developed by Tesla and xAI, which was acquired by Musk's spaceflight company, SpaceX. Intel, the 57-year-old chip maker, also said last week that it would join the project.

(With inputs from Reuters)