{"id":21339,"date":"2026-06-11T17:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T17:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/21339\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T17:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T17:42:08","slug":"elon-musk-addresses-asml-employees-pushes-into-chip-manufacturing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/21339\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk addresses ASML employees, pushes into chip manufacturing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX founder Elon Musk addresses members of the media during a press conference announcing new developments of the Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft, at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California on October 10, 2019. <\/p>\n<p>Philip Pacheco | Afp | Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>As he gears up to take SpaceX public in the largest IPO on record, CEO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/elon-musk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elon Musk<\/a> on Thursday spoke to employees of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/ASML\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ASML<\/a>, Europe&#8217;s most valuable company, underscoring the importance of chip manufacturing to his two main businesses.<\/p>\n<p>As the sole provider of a crucial advanced chipmaking machine, ASML will be a likely supplier for Musk&#8217;s massive chip fabrication plant in Texas known as Terafab.<\/p>\n<p>Calling in virtually to ASML&#8217;s annual technology conference, Musk spoke in a fireside chat with CEO Christophe Fouquet. The event was only accessible to employees, but Musk&#8217;s appearance was confirmed by the company. <\/p>\n<p>It comes days after Musk wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/2063335081385644403\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">post<\/a> on X that, &#8220;ASML should be treasured and supported. It is arguably the greatest company in Europe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Terafab project is Musk&#8217;s effort to move SpaceX beyond rockets and into advanced chip manufacturing. Musk officially announced plans for Terafab in March to make chips for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/TSLA\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tesla<\/a> and SpaceX, which owns artificial intelligence lab xAI.<\/p>\n<p>ASML, based in the Netherlands, is the only company in the world that makes the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/05\/22\/exclusive-look-at-high-na-asmls-new-400-million-chipmaking-colossus.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$400 million machine<\/a> needed for an advanced chip manufacturing step known as extreme ultraviolet lithography. Without ASML, the world&#8217;s three leading chip manufacturers \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/TSM\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Taiwan Semiconductor<\/a>, Samsung and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/INTC\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Intel<\/a> \u2014 can&#8217;t make leading edge chips for AI.<\/p>\n<p>EUV machines will be a necessity inside Terafab. And SpaceX will need a growing number of chips for its data centers after signing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/05\/06\/anthropic-spacex-data-center-capacity.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recent deals<\/a> to provide compute capacity to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/GOOGL\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/05\/06\/anthropic-spacex-data-center-capacity.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anthropic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If the full buildout comes to fruition, Terafab will cost between $55 billion and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/media-telecom\/spacex-wins-texas-county-approval-reinvestment-zone-tied-terafab-chip-facility-2026-06-03\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">$119 billion<\/a>. Last week, SpaceX secured tax incentives for the project during a contentious public hearing in Grimes County, Texas, despite opposition from nearby residents.<\/p>\n<p>At ASML, Musk&#8217;s remarks also received pushback from some employees. On the company&#8217;s internal communication platform, a group of employees wrote, ahead of the event, that Musk&#8217;s appearance did not align with ASML&#8217;s values, citing controversial involvement in U.S. politics and what some described as &#8220;Nazi sympathies,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dutchnews.nl\/2026\/06\/asml-staff-threaten-boycott-over-elon-musk-invitation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">according to<\/a> Dutch newspaper Eindhovens Dagblad.<\/p>\n<p>As a key supplier to all the most advanced chip manufacturers, ASML is known for keeping a neutral profile so it can work well alongside a complex global network of customers.<\/p>\n<p>ASML is expanding its footprint in its headquarters of Eindhoven, where a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dutchnews.nl\/2026\/03\/asml-gets-green-light-for-new-campus-creating-20000-jobs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">new campus<\/a> is expected to open in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>WATCH: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/video\/2025\/05\/22\/how-asml-makes-chips-faster-with-new-400-million-high-na-machine.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How ASML makes chips faster with new $400 million High NA machine<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"InlineVideo-videoThumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/108149110-1747881131480-Thumbnail_1.jpg\" alt=\"ASML&#x2019;s giant $400 million High NA transforms how chips are made. Here&#x2019;s an exclusive first look.\"\/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX founder Elon Musk addresses members of the media during a press conference announcing new developments of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[3018,65,804,73,2454,8,800,3019,3020,805,1343,670,1222],"class_list":["post-21339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-asml","tag-alphabet-class-a","tag-asml","tag-asml-holding-nv","tag-business-news","tag-christophe-fouquet","tag-elon-musk","tag-enterprise","tag-intel-corp","tag-ishares-semiconductor-etf","tag-spdr-sp-semiconductors","tag-taiwan-semiconductor-manufacturing-co-ltd","tag-technology","tag-tesla-inc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}