While Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk don’t need much more cash, the two multibillionaires could hugely benefit off a recent discovery in California.
Bezos and Musk have a combined net worth of around $549 billion, so the pair are far struggling to make ends meet.
But, after a study revealed astonishing quantities of ‘white gold’ at the bottom of a lake, Bezos and Musk could find themselves benefitting from it.
While the mine has been known about for some time, it’s only been more recently revealed that its lithium contents could be worth a staggering $540 billion.
This would be enough to power more than 382 million batteries for electric vehicles, meaning it could change the world economy forever.
“There’s potentially enough lithium down there to supply batteries for 382 million electric vehicles, which is more, more vehicles than there are on the road in the United States today,” said Sammy Roth, climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
“So, if we could get all that lithium, that’d be huge.”
There’s a vast supply of lithium located beneath California’s Salton Sea (Getty Stock Images)
As to how Musk and Bezos could benefit from the hugely profitable mine that’s been dubbed ‘the Saudi Arabia of lithium mining’, it’s down to the fact that both tech moguls own electric car companies.
Musk founded Tesla in 2003, while Bezos is a key investor in Rivian.
Most electric vehicles are made with lithium batteries, and a large majority of the world’s lithium supply comes from countries such as Australia, China, Chile and Argentina, as per Visual Capitalist.
Despite this, most of Tesla’s factories are US-based – with one of its largest being its Gigafactory in Nevada, which is said to have 12,000 employees.
Meanwhile, Rivian have recently had a conditional loan of $6.6 billion approved ahead of its plans to build a plant in Georgia.
The business hopes to have it up and running by 2028, says Reuters.
Elon Musk may eventually be able to source most of the lithium needed for Teslas EVs domestically (Nora Tam/South China Morning Post via Getty Images)
As it stands, Tesla supplies some of its lithium from China, while Rivian is said to have recently signed a five-year deal with LG Energy Solution, which is headquartered South Korea, as per Utility Drive.
While both companies have been largely relying on overseas sources, Rivian and Tesla now have a ‘white gold’ mine right on their doorstep in California (Riverside, to be precise).
Now, I’m no businesswoman, but surely it’s a much cheaper alternative to source supplies domestically than have it imported from other countries, no?
With this in mind, both EV companies could save a decent amount of cash by relying on the billons of dollars-worth of lithium below the Salton Sea.
