MP Materials CEO James Litinsky addresses David Friedberg's question about extracting lithium from seawater, arguing that scaling new extraction breakthroughs takes five to 10 years.
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2027
Litinsky predicts a major auto OEM will fail or need bailout by 2027
“I'll bet that in the next five years, we will see a major household name OEM fail or need a bailout due to not, you know, prices went up on them, but lack of access to a material, some kind of critical material.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2030
Litinsky predicts US taxpayers will profit from DoD deal in five years
“It would not surprise me if when we, five years from now, hopefully we'll do this conference, and Chamath, you'll say to me, Jim, you know, I remember that deal that was the first of its kind that you did with DoD, And the government made money on you. The tax…”
Assertion Partly supported
Litinsky: China drove almost all global commodity capacity expansion last decade
“Pretty much all of the incremental steel and aluminum and commodities capacity in the world over the last decade has come online because, you know, China has led the way.”
Assertion Partly supported
Litinsky: Rare earth supply chain outside MP Materials is domiciled in China
“So outside of us, this entire supply chain is essentially domiciled in China.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Litinsky: Glencore and Vale could match market caps in 3-year cash flow
“So, so actually the nickel industry is dominated by essentially Glencore and Valle. Those two businesses, and I'm not, you know, I'm not pitching stocks, but as an investor, you know, we'll see what the next panel, those two businesses right now at today's com…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Litinsky predicts Tesla or other EV makers will acquire upstream miners
“So what's going to happen is, I think you're going to see maybe an AOL Time Warner moment, and I don't mean it the negative way, but I think you could see a Tesla or someone like that buy upstream Outstream into these industries because ultimately downstream t…”