Tesla has hired Gary Jiang, a veteran of over seventeen years at Intel, in a move seen as the first major senior leadership appointment for Terafab, Elon Musk’s ambitious semiconductor manufacturing project.
The hire signals that Tesla is beginning to assemble an experienced team of manufacturing hands to help get the chip venture off the ground.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Jiang joined Tesla in June 2026 after leaving Intel, where his last position was Factory Manager. In that role, he was responsible for overseeing the construction of a production facility, the installation of fabrication equipment, factory startup, product certification, and the eventual transfer of Intel’s 18A technology process from the company’s development fab in Oregon to its high volume Fab 52 in Arizona.
Before that assignment, Jiang held several management positions at Intel’s Ocotillo campus in Chandler, Arizona, where he led technician teams responsible for startup, ramp, yield and output on the company’s 22nm, 14nm and 10nm class process technologies at Fab 32 and Fab 42.
His LinkedIn profile does not reveal much about his specific role at Tesla beyond confirming that he now holds the title of director at the company.
Tesla has, since March, been advertising for a Technical Program Manager to oversee semiconductor infrastructure and end to end fab program delivery, a position that remains unfilled, meaning Terafab still does not have one substantive leader steering the entire project.
In his most recent role at Intel, Jiang worked closely with supply chain, finance and materials logistics teams on new factory planning, covering output, wafer cost, yield and profitability.
He also managed billion dollar capital equipment procurement and the startup phase of the fab, making him one of the senior manufacturing figures behind the buildout of Intel’s 18A capable facilities in Arizona, principally Fab 52, and potentially Fab 62 as the campus grows.
His experience appears well suited to the task of converting a newly built fab shell or cleanroom into a fully functioning production facility.
That said, he was not responsible for every stage of the Fab 52 or Fab 62 programme, from permitting and groundbreaking through construction, tool installation and the ramp to high volume manufacturing, and he is unlikely to be positioned to lead Terafab in its entirety.
Still, with Terafab set to license Intel’s 14A process technology, Jiang’s background makes him one of the more logical hires for a project of this nature.
Tesla Will Not Own The High Volume Fab
One detail that has raised questions around the project is that Tesla itself will not own any high volume semiconductor production facility. According to Musk, that responsibility will fall to SpaceX instead.
In the near term, Tesla is expected to build a three billion dollar semiconductor research and development centre at its Texas campus.
The facility will house a small pilot line capable of processing a few thousand wafers a month, intended to test and validate new manufacturing processes before they are scaled up for commercial production.
Should the pilot line prove successful, SpaceX is expected to build a full scale high volume manufacturing fab.
Coordinating a joint venture of this kind between two separate companies is, however, likely to bring its own complications, as major decisions would require approval from both companies’ boards, along with conflict of interest reviews that could slow down execution.
Given that Jiang was hired by Tesla rather than SpaceX, it is possible his responsibilities will centre on equipping and ramping up the development facility at Gigafactory Texas rather than the high volume fab expected to be built under SpaceX.
This remains speculation for now, and there is nothing stopping SpaceX from bringing him on board at some later stage should the need arise.