Tesla Hires an Intel Veteran for Terafab: He Will Lead the Chip Factory Project

Tesla takes a new step in the development of the Terafab project, the future semiconductor factory announced alongside SpaceX, by hiring Gary Jiang as Director, Terafab. This is the first executive publicly associated with the initiative, a signal highlighting the desire to rapidly strengthen the manufacturing skills necessary to create a dedicated chip manufacturing facility.

According to the manager’s LinkedIn profile, Jiang started his position at Tesla in June 2026, working at the Austin, Texas headquarters. Before joining the automotive company, he spent nearly 18 years at Intel, holding positions of increasing responsibility in semiconductor factory management. His last position at Intel was Factory Manager, with responsibilities for the production transfer of Intel 18A technology, as well as for plant construction, equipment installation, production line start-up, and preparation for high-volume production. Previously, he worked at the Ocotillo campus in Arizona, overseeing production activities at Fab 12 and Fab 32 dedicated to 22 and 14 nanometer processes.

Jiang’s experience covers the most complex aspects of establishing a new semiconductor factory: technology transfer, plant start-up, strategic planning, cost reduction, and yield improvement. These skills are considered essential for a project like Terafab, which Tesla intends to develop practically from scratch—with the help of Intel.

The hiring comes just weeks after the publication of the first job offers dedicated to Terafab. The company was indeed looking for figures with experience in managing investments over 100 million dollars and in supervising the entire cycle of building an industrial plant, from design to construction to production start-up.

Introduced in March by Tesla and SpaceX, Terafab will rise in the North Campus of Giga Texas with the aim of concentrating in a single structure all the main phases of the semiconductor production supply chain: design, lithography, fabrication, memory production, advanced packaging, and final testing.

In statements by Elon Musk, the project has been described as an initial pilot plant based on Intel 14A production technology, with a projected capacity of about 100,000 wafers per month and the goal of reaching, in the long term, one million wafers monthly. In light of this, hiring figures linked to the Intel world (but not only) appears consistent with the announced collaboration between the two companies.

The economic dimensions of the initiative have also grown over the months. Initially, it was mentioned that the investment would be around 20 billion dollars; however, the documentation filed by SpaceX in May indicates an initial investment of about 55 billion dollars, with a total value that could reach 119 billion when considering all phases of the project.

Although Tesla has gained experience in designing chips for its autonomous driving systems and AI supercomputers, managing a foundry represents a fundamentally different activity that requires specific skills in operating facilities and optimizing production processes.