US President Joe Biden, with General Motors CEO Mary Barra, looks at a Chevrolet Silverado EV as he tours the 2022 North American International Auto Show at Huntington Place Convention Center in Detroit, Michigan on September 14, 2022. – Biden is visiting the auto show to highlight electric vehicle manufacturing.
Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images
General Motors said on Tuesday it plans to invest $650 million into Lithium Americas to secure access to lithium, a vital component of batteries for electric vehicles.
It’s the biggest investment an automaker has ever made to secure sources of the raw materials that go into batteries, the companies said.
When the lithium is extracted and processed from the Thacker Pass project, it will provide be enough for GM to make as many as one million electric vehicles per year.
Lithium is a critical component for batteries batteries because it has a very high energy density and withstands charging and discharging well, according to GM and Lithium Americas.
“Direct sourcing critical EV raw materials and components from suppliers in North America and free-trade-agreement countries helps make our supply chain more secure, helps us manage cell costs, and creates jobs,” GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra said in a statement announcing the investment.
Securing sources of materials is especially critical as GM looks to ramp up production of EVs. And in a letter to shareholders also published on Tuesday, Barra said that 2023 would be “a breakout year” for its Ultium Platform, which the automakers battery platform for EVs.
Barra said GM is on track to produce 400,000 EVs from 2022 through the first half of 2023 in North America.
In exchange for its investment, GM will get exclusive access to the first phase of lithium production and the right of first offer on the second phase of lithium production that will come out of Thacker Pass in Nevada, which is the largest source of lithium that has been identified in the United States, according to GM and Lithium Americas.
Lithium production at Thacker Pass, which is located in Northern Nevada, is due to begin in the second half of 2026, the companies said, and will create 1,000 jobs as the mine is being constructed and 500 during operations.
“It’s an exciting milestone, and we couldn’t ask for a better organization than General Motors to become our largest investor,” Lithium Americas President and CEO Jonathan Evans told CNBC. “GM shares our commitment to meaningfully advancing the energy transition, and I’m confident that together we can make Thacker Pass a major player in a secure, integrated North American supply chain from critical battery materials to EVs.”
The $650 million from GM will be delivered in two portions. The money for the first tranche will be held in escrow pending the conclusion of a Record of Decision ruling currently pending in U.S. District Court.
Most recently, there was a hearing on January 5, 2023 in the US District Court, District of Nevada, regarding an appeal of the issuance of the Record of Decision for the Thacker Pass project. On January 6, Lithium America said the court had confirmed there were no additional hearings or briefings required and that a final decision would be handed down “in the next couple months.”
The second portion of money from GM will be released when Lithium America’s US business and Argentinian businesses officially separate and when Lithium America has “sufficient capital” to be able to fully develop the Thacker Pass site, GM said.
Lip-Bu Tan, chief executive officer of Intel Corp., departs following a meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
Alex Wroblewski | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Friday that the U.S. government has taken a 10% stake in Intel, the embattled chipmaker that is the only American company capable of making advanced chips on U.S. soil.
Intel shares rose about 6% during trading on Friday. They were flat in extended trading.
A representative for Intel didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Lutnick’s social media post.
Earlier on Friday, President Donald Trump said the government should get about 10% of the company, which has a market cap of just over $100 billion.
“They’ve agreed to do it and I think it’s a great deal for them,” Trump told reporters Friday at the White House
White House officials previously told CNBC that Trump and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan will meet on Friday afternoon. Lutnick’s post included a photo with Tan.
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The move would mark the latest example of a distinct shift in U.S. industrial policy, with the government taking an active role in corporate America. Lutnick told CNBC this week that the U.S. government was seeking an equity stake in Intel in exchange for CHIPS Act funds.
“We should get an equity stake for our money,” Lutnick said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “So we’ll deliver the money, which was already committed under the Biden administration. We’ll get equity in return for it.”
Lutnick said that the government’s stake would be “nonvoting.”
Earlier this week, Intel announced another major backer, when SoftBank said it would make a $2 billion investment in the chipmaker, equal to about 2% of the company.
Intel’s technology is seen as lagging Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which makes chips for companies including Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, AMD, and even Intel.
Intel has been spending billions of dollars to build a series of chip factories in Ohio, an area the company previously called the “Silicon Heartland,” where Intel would be able to produce the most advanced chips, including for AI.
But in July, Tan said in a memo to employees that there would be “no more blank checks,” and that it was slowing down the construction of its Ohio factory complex, depending on market conditions. Intel’s Ohio factory is now scheduled to start operations in 2030.
Intel said last fall that it had finalized a nearly $8 billion grant under the CHIPS and Science Act to fund its factory-building plans. The CHIPS Act was passed in 2022, under the Biden administration.
— CNBC’s David Sucherman contributed to this report.
The price of ether rebounded to near-record levels on Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted at upcoming rate cuts and investors returned to risk-on mode.
The second-largest cryptocurrency was last higher by 12% at $4,738.91, according to Coin Metrics. Last week, ether nearly touched its 2021 all-time high of $4,866.01, before falling as low as the $4,000 level this Tuesday.
Ether (ETH) bounces after Powell’s Jackson Hole speech
The moves came during Powell’s annual address from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “With policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” said Powell.
“Traders seem to have been caught completely off-sides by Powell’s dovish comments today,” said Jordi Alexander, CEO at crypto trading firm Selini Capital. “The market positioning in recent sessions has seen clear risk-off moves in assets like crypto and tech, and today’s setting up of a September rate cut is causing a panicked repositioning, which could continue through the illiquid weekend as shorts get squeezed.”
“Momentum is back on the menu with the administration and the Fed seemingly aligned on easing,” he added.
Around the time of the speech, ETH saw about $120 million in short liquidations in a one-hour period, according to CoinGlass. When traders use leverage to short ether and the coin’s price rises, they buy ETH back from the market to close their positions. In turn, this pushes the coin’s price even higher and results in more positions being liquidated.
Shares of Peter Thiel-backed ETHzilla tumbled more than 38% at one point Friday after the ether treasury company offered up to 74.8 million of its shares for resale. It was last down 30% following Powell’s Jackson Hole remarks.
Elsewhere, Solana-focused treasury firm DeFi Development surged 19%, and crypto exchange Coinbase advanced 6%. Stablecoin issuer Circle gained 7%, and bitcoin proxy Strategy added 5%.
Ether exchange-traded funds saw $287.6 million in inflows Thursday, which snapped a four-day streak of outflows, according to crypto research platform SoSoValue. Still, those funds collectively were on pace for their first week of net outflows ($578.9 million) since May 9 and biggest week of outflows on record.
Bitcoin ETFs on Thursday logged their fifth session in a row of outflows, bringing their total for the week to $1.15 billion. They are now on pace for their biggest week of net outflows since Feb. 28.
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FILE PHOTO: Kimbal Musk speaks onstage at Move Over NFTs. Here Come the DAOs during the 2022 SXSW Conference and Festivals at Austin Convention Center on March 14, 2022 in Austin, Texas.
Chris Saucedo | Getty Images
Kimbal Musk, the younger brother of the world’s wealthiest person, said Elon Musk “deserves to be paid,” as Tesla remains locked in a legal saga over its CEO’s pay package.
“I think my brother deserves to be paid,” Kimbal Musk said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday. “He has zero pay for the past six to eight years. I don’t think that’s right. I’ll let Tesla shareholders make that decision, but I believe that it does need to be. He needs to be paid.”
Elon Musk isn’t paid a salary or any cash bonuses at Tesla. He is compensated through “performance awards” of valuable stock options that are granted based on Tesla hitting certain milestones.
Earlier this month, Tesla granted Elon Musk an “interim” pay package of 96 million shares, which would be worth about $29 billion. The package includes shares that vest in two years as long as he continues as CEO or in another key executive position.
The pay plan was approved by a “special committee” of the Tesla board, with Elon Musk and Kimbal Musk recusing themselves, board members Robyn Denholm and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson said in an Aug. 4 letter to shareholders.
The award came after a Delaware judge in December ordered Tesla to revoke Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package from 2018, which was the largest compensation plan in U.S. history for a public company executive.
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Before the Delaware ruling on his 2018 pay plan, in January 2024, Musk said he wanted even more pay and control of Tesla in a post on X, which was formerly known as Twitter.
“I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control,” Musk wrote at the time. “Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned. Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Tesla.”
He was already building products outside of Tesla, including at his newest artificial intelligence venture, xAI, which was formed in Nevada in March 2023.
The new pay package was granted to Musk without a shareholder vote, and will only apply if Musk and Tesla lose on appeal in Delaware.
An investment group that works with pension funds, the SOC Investment Group, sent a letter this week to Nasdaq asking them to investigate Tesla, saying its board should have attained shareholder approval for the new package under Nasdaq listing policies.
Denholm and Wilson-Thompson wrote in the letter that the special committee is working to “address a longer-term CEO compensation strategy,” which it plans to put to a shareholder vote at Tesla’s upcoming annual meeting in November.