Battery Metal Miners Say Elon Musk is Dampering Investments

According to a report published by the Financial Post, Elon Musk’s ambitions for the future of the electric vehicle (EV) world are making it hard for many in the battery metals mining business to seek investors.

Battery metal miners trying to tap electric car boom want Elon Musk to stop killing their buzz https://t.co/Ateq2UCOVH

— Gabe Friedman (@GabeFriedz) September 25, 2020

Toronto’s First Cobalt Corp. is currently trying to raise $60 million to get a battery-grade cobalt refinery in northern Ontario up and running, but Elon Musk isn’t making it any easier for them. In an email to the Financial Post, Trent Mell, the company’s CEO, detailed how Tesla and Musk are killing battery metal miners’ attempts to garner investment and capitalize on the EV boom.

The world sees Elon Musk as a visionary – the words of this one man can drive investors to or from industries. The eccentric CEO’s promises to “cut cobalt out of batteries”, a feat that analysts say is impossible right now, are what’s most damaging to the cobalt mining industry.

“It’s ultimately self-defeating,” was what Mell had to say about Musk’s claims to create cobalt-free batteries. And it was, seeing as Tesla’s stock dropped 19.3% in the two days following Battery Day 2020 as analysts explained that Tesla can’t deliver on big promises like a cobalt-free battery or a million-mile battery anytime soon.

Outraged at Elon Musk’s penchant for making promises he can’t deliver on, Mell even published a press release refuting, point-by-point, the promises Musk has made over the years.

While Tesla supports artisanal cobalt miners in the Congo, on one hand, it does nothing to help North American miners win investment on the other. That being the case, First Cobalt Corp. and many others in the industry are of the opinion that the government should help them out.