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Elon Musk says lithium refining business is a 'license to print money'

'You can't lose,' says the Tesla founder.

Ozzie Mejia

July 20, 2022 2:59 PM

Popular Science

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As Tesla (TSLA) continues to report its earnings for Q2 2022, Tuesday's call briefly turned towards the topic of lithium. As the company acknowledges the rise in lithium costs, company founder Elon Musk has started urging entrepreneurs to dive into the lithium refining market, noting that it is a "license to print money."

"I'll say this once again," Musk said during the Tesla Q2 2022 earnings call, "Entrepreneurs, enter the lithium refining business. You can’t lose."

During Tuesday's call, Tesla CFO Zack Kirkhorn noted that the cost of lithium has risen significantly. With that in mind, Kirkhorn noted that Tesla has begun working on lithium refining in-house. Musk previously floated out the idea of Tesla directly going into lithium mining as a response to rising costs.

While the Tesla reps on today's call expressed an expectation that inflation will decline before the end of the year, Musk remarked on the benefits of lithium refinement. Lithium is a precious metal that not only makes up some of the material in Tesla's electric vehicle batteries, but is also used in a bulk of tech products. In April, Tesla reported that nearly half of its vehicles were produced with lithium iron phosphate battery packs in an effort to combat nickel and cobalt shortages.

"Lithium ion battery cell supply is the fundamental constraint for the global transition to sustainable energy," Musk added during the call.

Tuesday's Tesla Q2 2022 earnings call has addressed a variety of topics, including the company's crypto holdings and the current status of the Cybertruck. Be sure to follow Shacknews' continuing Tesla coverage for the latest updates.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?