Musk Clarifies Mining Prospects
In a recent interview, Tesla CEO Elon Musk clarified that the EV company is really hoping to not have to get into the mining industry - contrary to hints and forecasts made in the last year or so.
Musk sat down with Johnna Crider of the “Getting Stoned” podcast (“a podcast about all things Gems and Minerals”) to chat about - among other things - the billionaire’s foray into Lithium and Nickel mining. Tesla, he says, doesn’t want to get into mining if they can help it, because it would involve way more complexity and limitations than Tesla wants to take on right now.
“[...] the challenge with a lot of the ingredients into lithium-ion batteries is the processing. It’s not the fundamental rarity of lithium. Lithium is very common. It’s one of the most common elements on earth. But you’ve got to turn it into battery-grade lithium and that’s, that’s where the chokepoint is,”
These thoughts - so uncharacteristically frank for Musk - are a bit confusing for anyone following Tesla’s work in the last couple years to court and acquire mining assets. Musk himself has talked - in April this year - about the need for Tesla to potentially get into mining to save costs.
But luckily during this podcast, Elon continues to be open, and clarifies that he doesn’t mean Tesla won’t get into mining at all - only that they’d really rather not. Which, fair enough. There’s plenty of ways to go here, including to acquire an existing company, and just let them continue. But he’s still not ruling it out, saying, “[...] if that’s the only way to accelerate the transition [to sustainable energy], then we will do that,”
This podcast appearance was really a great look into what Elon is thinking about the industry right now. It’s much less a question of if Tesla will get into mining, and more of a question of will they have to.