NEWS: SpaceX Aims to Build 10-Gigawatt Solar Factory Near Austin

SpaceX is planning a 10-GW solar factory...but the capacity is slated for the cosmos. (Bloomberg)

The Texas facility will stretch over 1M sq. ft., and the output is reserved for space-based data centers...which don't yet exist. (But maybe us Earthlings can borrow a bit?)

The big picture: This facility fits into Elon Musk's goal to build 200 GW per year of solar manufacturing capacity across Tesla and SpaceX. Reality check: Total US capacity now sits around 60 GW.

But this grand ambition recently ran into a huge hiccup: The Chinese government has blocked Tesla's order of top-tier solar manufacturing equipment from Suzhou Maxwell Technologies.