Why ASML Engineers Are Threatening to Boycott Elon Musk’s Terafab Pitch

For many employees, the optics are unforgivable. Musk is a deeply polarizing figure facing ongoing "Tesla Takedown" protests across the US and Europe over his political activities and management style . Inviting him to address a workforce already reeling from layoffs has been received as tone-deaf, with staff threatening to skip the event entirely .

ASML’s labor crisis: layoffs, walkouts, and seven weeks of silence

The boycott threat didn't emerge in a vacuum. It is the latest flashpoint in months of escalating labor unrest at ASML.

In January 2026, the company announced a major restructuring to cut 1,700 jobs—roughly 4% of its global workforce—targeting management roles in technology and IT departments. Of those, 1,400 cuts are in the Netherlands . The layoffs were pitched as necessary to streamline bureaucracy and refocus engineering teams on innovation, but employees and unions quickly cried foul .

The timing was particularly galling: the cuts were announced alongside record full-year revenue of €32.7 billion and a €38.8 billion order backlog . Dutch unions FNV and De Unie called the decision hypocritical, arguing that a company posting such strong results should not resort to forced layoffs .

Tensions boiled over on March 24, 2026, when more than 1,000 employees staged a lunchtime walkout at ASML's Veldhoven headquarters . Peter Reniers of the FNV union urged management to "go back to the drawing table" and present a plan without forced layoffs . Adding to the frustration, workers had been kept in the dark for seven weeks about whether they would personally lose their jobs, according to a company spokesperson .

Terafab: the $25 billion megaproject that needs ASML

The Terafab joint venture, announced by Musk on March 21, 2026, at the former Seaholm Power Plant in Austin, Texas, is one of the most ambitious semiconductor projects ever conceived . The partners—SpaceX, Tesla, xAI (now merged with SpaceX ahead of its IPO), and Intel—aim to build a vertically integrated mega-facility producing 1 terawatt of AI compute per year .

Intel joined in April 2026 after a weekend meeting between Musk and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, committing to design, fabricate, and package chips using its 18A process node . The facility would combine logic chips, HBM memory, advanced packaging, testing, and photomask production under one roof—a setup that currently does not exist anywhere in the world .

The publicly confirmed cost is $25 billion, though some reports cite a range of $20–$25 billion . The larger $55–$119 billion figure that has circulated in some discussions does not appear in any verified sourcing and may reflect speculative lifecycle estimates or conflation with other Musk ventures.

The EUV monopoly: why Musk must pitch ASML’s engineers

Terafab's entire premise depends on one irreplaceable supplier. ASML is the sole global manufacturer of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, the equipment required to print the most advanced sub-7nm chip designs at scale . There is no alternative vendor.

To hit its 1-terawatt annual compute target, Terafab will need multiple next-generation High-NA EUV tools. ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet has confirmed direct talks with Musk, calling the Terafab plan "very serious" and telling Reuters he expects the first chips to be made within months using ASML's high-NA systems .

Without guaranteed priority access to ASML's limited EUV output, Terafab cannot meet its stated capacity goals. This gives the Dutch company extraordinary leverage—and makes Musk's pitch directly to ASML engineers a strategic necessity, not a courtesy visit.

But that leverage cuts both ways. ASML is effectively asking the same workers it is laying off, and the same unions demanding a halt to forced redundancies, to help enable the chip-making ambitions of a billionaire whose public image is at a low ebb. It is a collision of corporate strategy and employee morale that will play out in real time at Thursday's conference.

What happens next

The fireside chat on June 11 will be a direct test of ASML's internal cohesion. If a significant number of engineers boycott the event, it will send an unmistakable signal about the depth of worker discontent—and raise questions about whether ASML can maintain the stability needed to deliver the EUV machines on which Musk's, and the broader semiconductor industry's, roadmaps depend.