Optimus Factory Steel Frame Nears Finish at Giga Texas

Tesla Optimus. Credit: Tesla

Aerial watcher Joe Tegtmeyer said on September 17 that steel at Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory on the Giga Texas North Campus is now only about five column grids from the north perimeter beam, putting the main skeleton in its final stretch.

In the same update, Tegtmeyer said concrete is already going in on the three upper floors, crews are still laying rebar for more pours, and footing and grade-beam work continues at ground level. The drone reel and stills show parallel work: steel rising toward the north edge while floor pours and foundation jobs keep moving underneath.

Tesla broke ground on the Optimus plant in late March 2026, so the build is roughly six months old. Outside observers have tracked the rise almost weekly by drone because Tesla rarely posts construction progress for the dedicated robot building.

What Tegtmeyer’s flight does not settle is schedule. Tesla has not issued a fresh comment on this week’s steel milestone, and the company has not tied a new public completion date to the north-beam gap closing. Readers should treat the five-grid figure as a site observation, not a Tesla press release.

Optimus remains Tesla’s humanoid robot program, with a smaller Fremont pilot line already building Gen 3 units for real-world training data while the Texas plant is meant for higher-volume manufacturing later. For prior robot-factory context on the Texas campus, see earlier coverage of Texas AI chip and factory buildouts and Tesla’s broader Optimus product push.

Tesla has not said when cladding, mechanical rough-in, or equipment install start after the steel closes, or how many robots the Texas building is sized to ship in its first year. Until an official update lands, the clearest public signal is still the drone: the Optimus skeleton at Giga Texas is nearly tied off at the north end.