Elon Musk wants to put robots on the Moon to build SpaceX factories

Elon Musk has revealed plans to put robots on the Moon. Why? The SpaceX CEO says that robots can help build factories on the Moon that can scale up to "1000x" the economy of the Earth.

In Short

• Elon Musk has plans to put robots on the Moon
• He says robots will build factories for SpaceX there
• Musk admits the ideal sounds totally nuts for now

Elon Musk is back at it again. After wanting data centres in space, the tech trillionaire now has a new idea – putting humanoid robots on the Moon to build factories. During SpaceX’s latest earnings call, Musk said the company wants to use robots on the Moon to build factories and industrial infrastructure.

He said that this could allow SpaceX to potentially scale up to 1000x the economy of the Earth. "It sounds super sci-fi right now, but it's going to happen," Musk added.

The tech trillionaire shared this vision alongside SpaceX’s plans to turn Starlink into a mobile service in the US.

Robots to build factories in space?

The logic behind building factories in space is similar to that of orbital data centres. That is, you need to invest less resources into cooling the facilities and there is no need for human labour either. On top of that, Musk says that SpaceX's satellites should be thought of as robots because "they're autonomous and don't need servicing."

According to Elon Musk, Moon-based robots could help SpaceX build a mass accelerator with solar production. A mass accelerator would, in essence, allow SpaceX to launch cargo from the Moon without rockets.

The SpaceX chief reckoned that robots "will be helpful” when it comes to building such an accelerator as well as factories. Though, even Musk acknowledged that the idea sounded “totally nuts,” at least at the moment.

While SpaceX outlined its plans for the Moon where humanoid robots would handle basic infrastructure work, equipment maintenance and resource processing, it did not provide any timeline or investment size for such a massive undertaking. It is also unclear if SpaceX plans to use Tesla’s current Optimus robots or any future iterations to achieve Musk’s goals.

Keep in mind that earlier this week, a discarded upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is believed to have crashed into the Moon after drifting in space for more than a year. The stage had been jettisoned during a January 2025 mission that carried Firefly's Blue Ghost and ispace's Hakuto-R lunar landers.

SpaceX partners with Nvidia for datacentres in space

At the same time, SpaceX announced a new partnership with Nvidia for its orbital data centres. As per the agreement, the two companies will be working together to design its Starmind AI-1 payload, which will serve as a satellite data centre.

SpaceX will use Nvidia’s latest Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs which will increase its peak satellite computing capacity to 250 kW. According to Elon Musk, SpaceX will begin launching Starmind satellites next year.

Musk also added that SpaceX's AI push would be built exclusively on Nvidia systems. "We think the Vera Rubin architecture is the best architecture. We think it's the best AI computer, and we greatly value our close cooperation and partnership on many levels with Nvidia," he said. "So we're exclusive to Nvidia."

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