SpaceX serious about building factories on the moon: 'It’s going to happen,' Elon Musk says
SpaceX plans to build factories on the moon, using robots to do much of the heavy lifting, Elon Musk said on Tuesday (Aug. 4) during SpaceX's first-ever quarterly earnings call.
During SpaceX's first-ever quarterly earnings call, Elon Musk revealed the company's ambitious plans to build factories on the moon. Musk stated, "We are going to land a lot of tonnage on the moon. We're going to build the factories on the moon. The robots will be helpful with that." This vision was first introduced in February when SpaceX announced its acquisition of xAI, a company founded by Musk in 2023.
However, Musk emphasized during Tuesday's call that off-Earth manufacturing is a top priority for SpaceX. The factories will be responsible for constructing SpaceX's Starmind AI satellites, which the company aims to operate a million-strong constellation in Earth orbit in the coming years. Musk further explained, "Eventually, SpaceX wants to launch locally made Starmind satellites off the lunar surface using electromagnetic mass drivers — basically, extremely powerful rail guns."
The company plans to use robots, likely the humanoid Optimus robots from Tesla, to perform the necessary tasks on the moon. This lunar manufacturing initiative could potentially revolutionize space exploration and satellite deployment, making it up to a million times more efficient than the current methods on Earth.
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