SPCX Jumps Overnight as Musk Softens His Terafab Stance With TSMC

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. shares jumped more than 3% in overnight trading late Sunday, changing hands around $139. That claws back part of Friday's 6% slide, which left SPCX at $134.72. October was brutal — the stock shed about 11%, its worst month since July — and it's down 16% year-to-date.

The spark: Musk appears to be loosening his grip on Terafab. DigiTimes reported fresh talks with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., and TriOrient research executive Dan Nystedt said on X that discussions would cover operational control, joint investment, technology, and packaging and component bottlenecks. That's a turn from last month, when Musk declared, 'No, we will build and run the fab. Let there be ZERO doubt about that,' leaving TSMC only the option of subleasing part of the site. TSMC CEO C.C. Wei confirmed talks but insisted any fab involved must be run by TSMC. Terafab is a SpaceX-Tesla venture with Intel as a partner; Reuters reported it targets a first test chip around May or June 2027 and volume production in the third quarter of 2028.

Musk also swatted down the price tag of his AI buildout. 'Our capex efficiency is greatly underestimated,' he said on X, responding to a projection from Milk Road co-owner Kyle Reidhead that SpaceX could spend $470 billion over the next five quarters to reach 13 gigawatts of computing capacity by the end of 2027. Reidhead's model assumes rapid construction generates revenue that funds further expansion, projecting quarterly revenue of roughly $122 billion by late 2027 alongside $150 billion in debt — and estimating Nvidia could capture 83% to 89% of the spending, potentially $414 billion.

The cash is already moving. SpaceX expects $35 billion to $40 billion in fourth-quarter capital spending, and third-quarter revenue jumped 161%, hitting $14.58 billion, with $7.56 billion of that from AI. The company has also arranged $40 billion in chip and server financing through an Apollo Global Management affiliate, with deliveries and leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.

At Colossus 2, Musk said two buildings each hold 220,000 Nvidia chips used to train AI models, with a third — Gun Range — carrying the same capacity and a fourth, Spam, holding about 200,000 chips to run AI services after training. 'Gun Range is tracking to be operational by end of November and Spam in December,' he posted, adding that Colossus 2 should host around 1.2 million Blackwells by year's end. The expansion includes a former food-storage facility and a police gun range, and Colossus was originally built to power xAI's Grok chatbot before SpaceX acquired xAI. The project also faces an NAACP lawsuit alleging gas turbines supplying electricity ran without required permits.

Retail traders on Stocktwits aren't buying the bounce yet. Sentiment for SPCX slipped to 'bearish' from 'extremely bullish' a week ago on 'low' message volume. One user argued SpaceX's fast data-center construction could ease the next computing bottleneck, writing, '2027 is going to be insane.' Another flagged $130 and $135 as key support, warning a break below $130 could trigger a deeper decline.