Elon Musk lands in Austin the week Terafab chip project costs surge

Elon Musk flew from Draughon Miller Central Texas Regional Airport near Temple to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on May 8, 2026, aboard his Gulfstream G650ER, N628TS. The 21-minute hop covered just over 100 miles at low altitude, touching down shortly before 7 p.m. local time after a day of cross-country travel.

The timing aligns with fresh scrutiny on Musk's Terafab semiconductor initiative, announced in March at a splashy Austin event. Per a CNBC report on May 6, new filings disclose the first phase alone could cost $55 billion, scaling to $119 billion for full buildout at the site adjacent to Tesla's Giga Texas factory. The project, a collaboration between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, aims to produce AI and robotics chips in-house, shielding against global shortages—though skeptics wryly note the irony of Musk's empire betting big on Texas soil he once vowed to avoid owning.

This Austin return caps a frenetic week for Musk, who shuttled between Portland, San Jose, Los Angeles, and SpaceX's Starbase in Brownsville before the Temple stopover. With Tesla headquartered in Austin and his modest Starbase-area residence as a base, such loops underscore his peripatetic oversight of ventures from EVs to Mars ambitions, even as political echoes from his DOGE stint fade.