San Francisco, Dec 17 (IANS): Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that its electric vehicle company is planning to invest over $10 billion in Gigafactory Texas and will eventually employ 20,000 workers.

In a Twitter post, he said that Tesla plans to invest as much as $10 billion in the factory over time.

"Giga Texas is a $10B+ investment over time, generating at least 20k direct & 100k indirect jobs," Musk wrote.

According to the auto-tech website Electrek, Tesla is expected to start Model Y production at Gigafactory Texas in Austin any day now. The new factory is critical to Tesla's expansion plans in the US.

Currently, Tesla sells every car it can make in the US, and it has delivery timelines of close to a year out for some of its most popular vehicles.

All Tesla vehicles currently sold in the US are made at its Fremont factory in California, which can produce about 500,000 electric vehicles per year.

Gigafactory Texas is expected to more than double this output once it's fully ramped up, but that's a few years away, the report said.

The automaker is going to start with Model Y, which is Tesla's most popular vehicle, at the new factory. Tesla has been guiding a start of production by the end of the year.

Tesla had previously mentioned 10,000 employees, but now Musk suggests that Tesla will directly employ as many as 20,000 people. Worldwide, Tesla now has over 100,000 employees.