Elon Musk’s Tesla eyes $10B Fort Bend solar plant: What to know
Tesla is considering placing a $10 billion solar cell facility in Fort Bend County, according to state records, as Elon Musk continues to expand his operations in the Houston region. The electric automaker on Aug. 6th filed for school district property tax abatements related to the project, which it says would be located in Lamar Consolidated Independent School District, a quickly growing district in the southwest of Houston.The project represents a capital investment of $10.1 billion, Tesla said. Building the facility would also create 1,150 construction jobs over a three-year period, the filing said, with the plant launching operations in 2029.Tesla said in the filing that it is still considering at least one other site for the project, and that receiving the tax breaks, under Texas’s Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation program, “would help to establish the Fort Bend County site as economically competitive in relation to the other site.” “Should Tesla make the decision to develop the proposed project in another state, Texas would miss the opportunity to attract billions of dollars in investment, help create thousands of full-time jobs for its residents, and become a hub for domestic solar cell manufacturing in the U.S.,” the company said. On Thursday, SpaceX said that it would, along with Tesla, build a $16.8 billion advanced semiconductor facility in Grimes County, northwest of Houston and near College Station. Terafab, as the facility is known, will make chips for self-driving cars and space-based data centers, among other things. It is expected to cover 100 million square feet and create 3,000 jobs. Houston business leaders have said the advanced manufacturing sector has significant growth potential for the regional economy. According to the Greater Houston Partnership, the manufacturing sector employed nearly 240,000 people across the Houston region in 2025, or about 7% of all Houston-area workers, and accounted for nearly 17% of the region’s GDP.
