Gov. Greg Abbott announced the expansion of SpaceX facilities in Grimes County on Thursday.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is constructing a 100-million-square-foot vertically integrated semiconductor facility called the Terafab. If fully built, it would be the largest semiconductor facility and one of the largest industrial buildings ever constructed in the world.
The first phase of the Terafab project will see $16.8 billion in capital invested in the facility’s construction, along with the creation of 3,000 jobs in Grimes County.
A Texas Enterprise Fund grant of $30 million has been awarded to SpaceX, and the new program meets the Texas Job, Energy, Technology, and Innovation (JETI) program requirements.
TEF is a performance-based grant, administered by the Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office within the Office of the Governor, that may be awarded to a business relocation or expansion project for which one Texas site competes with out-of-state locations to create new, good-paying jobs in the community and attract significant new capital investment to the state.
Abbott signed House Bill 5 into law in 2023, creating the JETI program. JETI reimburses local school districts for tax breaks provided to qualified projects.
Grimes County school districts have already approved multi‑million‑dollar tax breaks tied to the Terafab project, touting the potential for thousands of high‑paying jobs and a larger tax base over time.
“Texas is where big ideas grow even bigger,” said Abbott. “I congratulate SpaceX on this significant expansion of their investment in our great state. The first-of-its-kind Terafab facility will accelerate chip production in Texas at an unprecedented scale, create thousands of good-paying jobs in Grimes County, and expand economic opportunity for generations of Texans across Southeast Texas and beyond.”
