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Tesla Inc., the electric-car maker run by billionaire Elon Musk, has started site work on Project Crystal Sun, a $10.1 billion solar manufacturing plant outside Houston that would be the company's biggest bet yet on making solar products in the U.S.
The factory is going up on parts of a 3,050-acre site near Richmond in Fort Bend County, Texas. Tesla expects to spend $10.116 billion on the project from 2026 through 2028, about $1.5 billion on real estate and $8.6 billion on equipment, according to plans the company filed with Texas authorities in August. Commercial production could begin in the first quarter of 2029.
Musk shared news of the groundwork on X. He has previously set a target of building about 100 gigawatts a year of solar manufacturing capacity in the U.S., a goal he said could take about three years.
Tesla shares rose 5% on Nov. 9, recovering part of a 10% drop the previous week. The stock was still down 16% for the year.
A bigger energy business
Tesla's energy arm dates to its $2.6 billion purchase of SolarCity Corp. in 2016, a deal that brought Musk's cousins' rooftop solar company into the carmaker. The unit has since grown into a meaningful part of the business, with energy generation and storage revenue of $12.77 billion in 2025, about 13.5% of Tesla's total sales. Cars still make up most of the company's revenue.
In late 2025, Tesla began producing residential solar panels at its plant in Buffalo, New York, in a move to rely less on outside partners and on solar cells imported from China. The Texas factory would take that effort to a far larger scale.
The project comes as Musk reshapes Tesla's lineup. He said on X that Tesla will pause production of the stainless steel Cybertruck at its Texas gigafactory around June or July next year to make room for the Cybercab, the company's planned driverless taxi. Customers whose orders cannot be filled will get their deposits back. Musk added that it is "insanely" hard to build a high-volume factory.
Musk's fortune
Musk, 55, is the world's richest person, according to Forbes, with a fortune built mainly on his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, the rocket company he founded in 2002. He has run Tesla since 2008.
Tesla's headquarters and its main U.S. vehicle plant are near Austin, Texas.
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