SpaceX to Build Its Own Gas Turbines in a Game-Changing Move

Tesla

Elon Musk said SpaceX can accelerate natural-gas turbines coming online by up to 18 months by casting the blades and vanes in-house, a step he called a profound game-changer while Tesla and SpaceX each race 100 gigawatts a year of solar production.

Musk wrote on August 29 that both companies are building that solar capacity as fast as possible, but natural gas will still be needed to supplement and bootstrap solar for several years. The bottleneck, he said, is casting turbine blades and vanes, and bringing that work inside SpaceX is how the turbines get on the grid sooner.

Tesla and SpaceX have had a mandate to scale U.S. solar manufacturing to 100 gigawatts a year since the winter hiring push, and SpaceX later filed permits for a giant solar factory near Austin.

Musk is now tying SpaceX’s factory floor to the turbines that keep AI and grid loads running until those solar lines catch up, the same energy push sitting behind SpaceX’s AI power targets. Casting blades and vanes in-house is the shortcut he is putting on the clock.

The 18-month pull-in is the claim on the table, and SpaceX intends to cast the hard parts itself while both companies keep building the solar capacity that is supposed to take over.