Defense manufacturing startup Hadrian on Thursday announced the closing of $260 million Series C funding round led by Peter Thiel‘s Founders Fund and Lux Capital.

The machine parts company said it will use the funding to build a new 270,000 square foot factory in Mesa, Arizona, and expand its Torrance, California, location as it looks to beef up its shipbuilding and naval defense capabilities.

“What we really need in this country is this quantum leap above China’s manufacturing model,” said CEO Chris Power in an interview with CNBC’s Morgan Brennan. “It’s about supercharging the worker versus replacing them.”

Defense tech startups like Hadrian are disrupting the mainstay defense contracting industry, which is led by leaders such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, and battling it out to boost U.S. defense production while scooping up Department of Defense contracts.

Hadrian said the Arizona space will be four times the size of its California facility and start operations by Christmas. The factory will create 350 local jobs. The Hawthrone, California-based company said it is working on four to five new facilities to support production over the next year to support Department of Defense needs.

Hadrian said it uses robotics and artificial intelligence to automate factories that can “supercharge American workers.”

Power said demand is rapidly growing, but the lack of U.S.-based talent is a major hurdle to building American dominance in shipbuilding and submarines.

Using its tools, the company said it can train workers within 30 days, making them 10 times more productive. Its workforce includes ex-marines and former nurses who have never set foot in a factory.

“We have to do a lot more … but certainly we’re able to keep up with the scale right now, and grateful to our team and customers for letting us go and do that,” he said. “As a country, we have to treat this like a national security crisis, not just the economics of manufacturing.”

The fresh raise also includes investments from Andreessen Horowitz and new stakeholders such as Brad Gerstner’s Altimeter Capital.

The company closed a $92 million funding round in late 2023.

WATCH: Startup Hadrian raises $260 million to expand its AI-powered factories to meet soaring demand

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company CEO C.C. Wei on Thursday said the company is seeing “strong interest” from its leading U.S. customers and is working to speed up its volume production schedule by several quarters.

TSMC is the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, and the company has pledged to invest a total of $165 billion in advanced semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. The company shared updates to its global manufacturing plans during its second-quarter earnings call on Thursday.

“TSMC will continue to play a critical and integral role in enabling our customers’ success, while also maintain a key partner and network of the U.S. semiconductor industry,” Wei said on the call.

As part of its investment in the U.S., TSMC is building six advanced wafer manufacturing fabrication facilities in Arizona, two advanced packaging fabrication facilities and an R&D center.

Wei said the first fabrication facility in Arizona is already complete, the second has been built and construction is underway at the third.

The company reported $31.7 billion in revenue for the period, as well as nearly a 61% rise in profit year over year, hitting a record high and beating estimates.

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened steep “reciprocal tariffs” of 32% in Taiwan, but the country is carrying out trade talks with the U.S., according to local media reports. Trump warned of potential additional tariffs on semiconductors earlier this month.

“Looking into second half of 2025, we have not seen any change in our customers’ behavior so far,” Wei said. “However, we understand the uncertainties and risk from the potential impact of tariff policies, especially on consumer-related and the price-sensitive, end-market segment.”

WATCH: TSMC posts second-quarter profit surge — here are the key points

The Securities and Exchange Commission has agreed to give Elon Musk more time to respond to its lawsuit over his alleged failure to properly disclose purchases of Twitter stock before bidding to buy the company.

In a motion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, the SEC said it had reached a joint agreement with Musk to push back the deadline for his response to Aug. 29. The date was originally set for June 6, before being extended to July 18, according to the filing.

The SEC filed its lawsuit against Musk in January. The agency contends that Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, violated securities law in 2022 by failing to disclose that he had built an active stake in Twitter. In doing so, it enabled him “to underpay by at least $150 million for shares he purchased after his financial beneficial ownership report was due,” according to the SEC.

Musk purchased Twitter, which he later renamed to X, for $44 billion in 2022.

The SEC is seeking a jury trial and asks that Musk be forced to “pay disgorgement of his unjust enrichment” as well as a civil penalty.

Lawyers for Musk, who is the world’s richest person, have previously denied that he did anything wrong and called the lawsuit a “sham.”

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.

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