Elon Musk’s Solar Moonshot Still Runs Through China

American clean energy dreams, simply put, rely on China. Tesla just ordered specialized factory equipment from Chinese firms including Suzhou Maxwell Technologies to build large-scale solar manufacturing plants itself, in the latest demonstration of that. Musk wants Tesla to singlehandedly produce up to 100 gigawatts of solar panels annually by 2028.

Tesla’s reported to spend up to $2.9 billion on the order. That may seem like a massive number for solar equipment, but here are the specifics: The money buys Tesla industrial-scale manufacturing equipment to build a fully integrated solar production chain in the U.S. Tesla is buying whole automated production lines and modular assembly units. We’re talking the ability to mass produce solar panels at Chinese-scale.

And the association with Suzhou Maxwell Technologies matters. The Jiangsu-based company is the largest producer of screen-printing equipment for solar cells. The equipment is used to apply a conductive silver paste which directly impacts cell efficiency, out per panel and cost performance.

The purchased equipment will be shipped out to Texas where the final product will be used across all Elon Musk operations including SpaceX, manufacturing batteries for Tesla, AI data centers. The list is as long as Musk’s interests.

Tesla’s ambition reflects a stark reality. The need and demand for solar power when electricity demand is surging, particularly from artificial intelligence infrastructure. And yet, the U.S. doesn’t produce enough and has to rely on Chinese solar panels.

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Crisis management has done what climate goals couldn’t: the need for energy independence. The Hormuz disruption has effectively accelerated the economic case for electrification, exposing the risks of fossil fuel dependence.

But there is another angle. One that hopes to replicate and compete with China’s industrial strength by putting it to use. And while it does that, it builds a hedge against the energy crisis and reduces the strain on the grid.

100 billion watts of solar capacity is enough to power about 15–20 million U.S. homes. With that capacity, Tesla aims to build one of the largest solar manufacturing ecosystems in the world.

But the timing is tricky. The trade and tech rivalry sits heavy on this deal. If China gets mad, Tesla’s supply chain is disrupted overnight. Secondly, to build and produce anything at that scale takes a lot of upfront investment in terms of space, facilities, labor, to name a few.