Aerial footage captured this week by drone journalist Joe Tegtmeyer shows Tesla's Terafab semiconductor complex in Grimes County, Texas advancing at a pace that's hard to ignore. Active land clearing, controlled burns, tree removal, and grading work are all happening simultaneously — a sign that the project is well past the planning stage and deep into site preparation.
1. This is the full-scale plant, not the Austin prototype
It's worth being precise about which Terafab site this footage covers. The Grimes County location — on the former Gibbons Creek Reservoir power plant site, confirmed in August 2026 — is the permanent, full-scale manufacturing complex. A separate, smaller prototype fabrication facility is already under active foundation construction on the north campus of Giga Texas in Austin. The Grimes County site is the one that will eventually span over 100 million square feet across roughly 3,000 acres, making the current land-clearing work a very early chapter in a very long build.
2. The burn ban lift on October 7 unblocked a key step
Tegtmeyer specifically notes that debris burn-outs resumed after a regional burn ban was lifted on October 7. That detail matters operationally: controlled burns are one of the fastest ways to clear dense Texas brush and tree debris after mechanical clearing, and the ban had been a genuine constraint on pace. With it lifted, the site can now run land clearing and burn operations in parallel rather than sequentially — which explains the visible acceleration in this week's footage.
3. The project is a Tesla-SpaceX-Intel joint venture with a massive compute target
Terafab was officially announced by Elon Musk on March 21, 2026 as a joint development between Tesla, SpaceX, and Intel. The stated goal is over one terawatt of AI compute capacity per year, integrating chip design, fabrication, memory production, advanced packaging, and testing under a single roof. According to previous reporting, Tesla and SpaceX will retain operational control, though TSMC may potentially lease a portion of the facility. The chips produced here are intended for Tesla's Full Self-Driving stack, Cybercab robotaxis, Optimus humanoid robots, and SpaceX's space-based data centers — essentially the compute backbone for everything Musk is building.
4. The investment and jobs numbers are substantial
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Initial phase investment | ~$16.8 billion |
| Jobs expected (initial phase) | ~3,000 |
| Planned site footprint | 100M+ sq ft / ~3,000 acres |
| Total owned land (project area) | ~6,640 acres + 2,300 additional |
| SpaceX-controlled land in broader area | 13,000+ acres |
Sources: verified reporting as of October 2026
5. The Austin prototype fab is on a faster timeline — and AI5 chips are the near-term milestone
While Grimes County is still in site prep, the Austin prototype facility is further along. Groundbreaking there happened in April 2026, and current aerial footage from that site shows active foundation construction: large ground slabs being poured, staged rebar, and a new tall crane going up. That facility targets 2-nanometer process technology with an initial output of a few thousand wafers per month — enough for concept testing. Small-batch production of Tesla's fifth-generation AI chip, AI5, is anticipated before the end of 2026, with volume production expected in 2027. The Austin dev-fab shell itself is projected to be completed in late 2027.
The Grimes County footage is essentially a preview of what will eventually dwarf the Austin prototype by orders of magnitude. The burn ban lift, the parallel grading work, and the pace Tegtmeyer describes all suggest the site preparation phase is being treated with the same urgency Tesla applies to Gigafactory construction. How quickly the project moves from cleared land to foundation pours will be the next meaningful signal to watch.
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Sources & reporting notes
The links below identify the material source records used for this report.
- @JoeTegtmeyer on X (2026-10-15T18:05:53.000Z) — Direct source
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