Tesla Luring TSMC Engineers With High Salaries for Terafab Plant

Tesla, led by Elon Musk, aims to revolutionize the semiconductor industry. To accelerate the construction of its Terafab plant designed for producing its own chips, the company is poaching engineers from Taiwan's TSMC, the world's leading chipmaker. This move is seen as a significant step toward Tesla's technological independence. This is reported by Ixbt.com news reports.

According to ixbt.com, Tesla is promising experienced technology engineers salaries 3-5 times higher than those offered by TSMC. Specifically, the average annual salary for specialists is expected to start from 1.62 million yuan, or approximately 240 thousand US dollars. Such a high income level is considered very attractive, even for the high-tech sector.

Not limiting itself to the base salary, Tesla is also offering new employees restricted stock units (RSUs) as an incentive. This strategy serves not only to attract the strongest specialists but also to ensure they remain with the company long-term. The goal is to master TSMC's advanced technological processes and complete the construction of the new plant as quickly as possible.

The traditional method of Silicon Valley giants

In reality, the strategy of attracting Taiwanese specialists with high salaries is not new. Silicon Valley giants like Google and Micron have been using this method for many years. Tesla has become the next major player to enter this battlefield. Such a "talent hunt" demonstrates how fierce the competition is in the global semiconductor market.

For example, in 2017, Google acquired a team of 2,000 engineers who participated in the development of HTC's Pixel smartphones for 1.1 billion dollars. Additionally, in 2025, the search giant recruited HTC's virtual and mixed reality specialists. Tesla is currently following this path, seeking to save time by attracting ready-made, highly qualified personnel.

Elon Musk's massive Terafab project is expected to begin producing its first processors starting in 2026. The importance of this plant is not limited to supplying chips for cars. According to the plan, nearly 80 percent of the produced goods will be directed toward orbital data centers in the future.

If this project is successfully implemented, Tesla could achieve leadership not only in the electric vehicle market but also in space technology and high-performance computing systems. The departure of specialists from a giant like TSMC may potentially lead to staffing shortages for the Taiwanese company.