Elon Musk is kicking off SpaceX's public debut with a personal pitch to employees at a critical semiconductor supplier. According to internal communications obtained by Business Insider, the SpaceX founder will participate in a virtual fireside chat with ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet at the company's annual technology conference next Thursday.
The private event will see Musk "share his vision on AI, robotics, space, and semiconductor manufacturing, including the Terafab concept" with ASML engineers and other employees, as described on an internal employee portal. ASML notes that this technology conference is a closed global event for employees and partners to share technical innovations. The virtual event takes place just one day before SpaceX is scheduled to go public at a potential valuation of $1.75 billion.
The Terafab, a mega-scale joint venture between SpaceX, Tesla, and Intel to build massive semiconductor fabrication plants, represents a vital cornerstone of SpaceX's pitch to Wall Street. Much of SpaceX's valuation and growth projections hinge on its highly ambitious plan to deploy up to 1 million orbital data centers, which Musk has stated will require a massive, vertically integrated supply of proprietary chips built by the Terafab.
Netherlands-based ASML, Europe's most valuable tech company, is the linchpin of this vision. It is the sole manufacturer of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, which are indispensable for producing cutting-edge chips at scale. ASML CEO Fouquet confirmed last month that he had discussed the Terafab project with Musk, warning that SpaceX's goal of scaling to a terawatt of AI compute annually could trigger severe chip supply bottlenecks in the coming years.
[AgentUpdate Depth Analysis] Musk's Terafab initiative and the vision of deploying a million "orbital data centers" represent a fundamental paradigm shift in compute infrastructure, transitioning from Earth-bound facilities to space-based networks. By bypassing planetary power and cooling constraints, this localized space-computing grid could provide the ultimate, uninterruptible backend for the next generation of AI Agents. In a fully realized decentralized space-compute paradigm, AI Agents will transcend local latency boundaries, running autonomously across low-Earth orbit satellite constellations. This infrastructure is poised to power real-time coordination for autonomous robotics, aerospace fleets, and embodied intelligence. For the global AI Agent ecosystem, Terafab’s vertically integrated approach challenges traditional hyperscale cloud dominance, unlocking a future of ubiquitous, resilient, and space-native intelligence.
