Overview
- Musk confirmed Sunday that SpaceX will manufacture gas-turbine blades and vanes internally to speed deliveries for xAI and related projects.
- Reporters have identified a developing foundry footprint in Bastrop, Texas, including land buys, new buildings, and job postings though formal permit filings are limited.
- SpaceX has committed roughly $2.8 billion to turbine procurement and acquired APR Energy for about $1 billion to access a mobile fleet exceeding 1 GW of capacity.
- Civil-rights and environmental groups have sued over unpermitted, high-emission mobile turbines at Colossus sites and SpaceX says it will remove those units as permitted permanent plants come online.
- Hot-section turbine blades require advanced single-crystal casting from a handful of global foundries with multi-year backlogs, so in-house production could cut wait times but faces steep technical and permitting hurdles.