Elon Musk sleeps at construction site! Going all out for AI infrastructure

Yuyang, reporting from Aofei Temple

Musk’s latest “palace” revealed——

An Airstream trailer parked in Memphis, USA.

△be like

That’s right,Musk has once again moved into a construction site. This time, it’s tooversee the AI data center.

xAI, now merged into SpaceX, is ramping up expansion of its supercomputing center, Colossus——

This data center has already helped SpaceX secure external contracts worth billions of dollars from Google and Anthropic, giving a major boost to SpaceX’s trillion-dollar IPO.

Now, in the words of SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell:

He really does sleep on the factory floor. Right now, he’s in Memphis, helping build the facility.

And right in that trailer, Musk once again hinted: a merger between Tesla and SpaceX might be on the horizon.

Who knows what actions people will take?

Musk’s “production hell” now hits AI

Musk revealed his latest residence during a live connection at the All-In Summit.

His decision to live in a trailer is hardly a whim.

This place has become one of the most critical infrastructure bases of his entire AI empire.

In 2024, xAI began building the Colossus supercomputer cluster in Memphis, and once again set an astonishing “Musk record”:

It took only 122 days to deploy 100,000 GPUs;

Soon after, it doubled the scale to 200,000 GPUs in just 92 days.

△Image source: SpaceX official site

In February this year, things shifted again in a key way:SpaceX officially acquired xAI.

Now rockets, Starlink, X, Grok, and the rapidly expanding AI computing infrastructure of xAI are all under the same company.

In its IPO documentation, SpaceX directly described xAI as an important component of its “vertical integration” and explicitly stated plans to extend AI computing power from ground data centers to outer space—a grand Musk-style narrative that has sent SpaceX’s IPO valuation soaring.

So now, Memphis’s Colossus is no longer just a data center built for Grok model training.It’s evolving into Musk’s most important testing ground for AI infrastructure.

According to the SpaceXAI official website, currently, Musk’s goal is to expand the Colossus system to atotal of 1 million GPUsby 2026. Additionally, in July, Musk announced that SpaceXAI would construct a fourth data center, Minihard, in the Memphis area to further expand its existing facilities.

As for how seriously Musk takes projects he sees as a “life or death” gamble, there’s no shortage of precedents...

During Model 3’s production hell, he slept in the Tesla factory; after acquiring Twitter and entering the so-called “code red” state, he moved into Twitter headquarters.

Now, it’s AI computing’s turn.

But with the AI boom, Musk’s living conditions have improved a bit: at least he has a trailer this time (doge).

Will Tesla and SpaceX eventually merge?

Even more interestingly, Musk’s vertical integration likely goes beyond just SpaceX, xAI, and X.

At the All-In Summit, Musk again discussed much deeper cooperation between Tesla and SpaceX, for example, the Terafab—targeted as the “world’s largest chip plant.”

Tesla and SpaceX are working together to build a wafer plant in Austin. We’ve ordered all the equipment and hope to deliver something useful by the end of next year.

Terafab aims to manufacture over 1 TW of computing hardware per year. Musk previously said he believes the world’s current semiconductor capacity simply can’t meet the future demands of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI.

So, the host asked a sharp question: in that case, why keep Tesla and SpaceX independent?

Musk be like: good question.

Although he didn’t give a direct answer, Musk didn’t deny the possibility either:

Who can imagine what people will do, after working so closely together across so many fields?

No timelines, no deal structure, and no commitments.

But to any keen observer, it’s clear that Tesla and SpaceX are looking less and less like two completely parallel Musk companies.

Beyond chip manufacturing, in March this year, Tesla invested$2 billion in SpaceX, with a stake of less than 1%.

Additionally, in the first half of this year, just SpaceX’s purchases of Tesla Megapack generated$405 million in revenuefor Tesla.

Musk moving assets between his companies is a routine play. Now with AI as an even greater core objective, the scenario of a larger integration is firmly on the table in the capital markets.

SpaceX has already described itself as a “future infrastructure company” spanning space, communications, and AI computing—so why not add some Robo elements as well (doge).

From this perspective, Musk living in a trailer this time comes with a different aura compared to his factory floor days.

A Musk business empire stretching from chips, electric power, data centers, all the way to robotics, space, and future infrastructure is unfolding right outside that trailer window.

As for how many nameplates will end up hanging over this empire…

That really is a “Great question.”