Tesla North America and Elon Musk announced this week that the largest and most advanced lithium refinery in the United States has started operations. The facility is located just outside Corpus Christi, Texas.
"Our Lithium Refinery ushers in energy independence for North America," Tesla North America stated in a video caption announcing the plant's operational status. The refinery began construction two years ago.
The site converts spodumene ore directly into battery-grade lithium hydroxide through a first-of-its-kind process in North America. Jason Bevan, Site Manager for Tesla's Gulf Coast Lithium Refinery, said the company uses a new technology platform that allows a cleaner, simpler, and cheaper process to obtain battery-grade lithium from the raw material.
Tesla says it sustainably sources spodumene and processes it through conveyance systems, a kiln, a cooler, an alkaline leech, purification steps, and crystallization to produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide.
"Our process is more sustainable than traditional methods and eliminates hazardous byproducts and instead produces a co-product named anhydrite used in concrete mixes," a refinery employee said in the Tesla video.
Tesla notes this refinery provides access to critical minerals for energy storage, battery manufacturing, and electric vehicle growth. The company says the facility accelerates its mission by regionalizing supply chains for battery minerals and materials, providing jobs, and cutting emissions from transportation required for those supply chains.
"It really allows us to usher in energy independence for North America," Tesla said.
The domestic lithium refinery represents one of the first concrete steps for America to reduce dependence on refined lithium supply from China. The U.S. has been trying for years to break industrial and national security dependence on critical minerals used in battery technology and defense, military, and automotive technologies.
The Trump Administration increased efforts by directly investing, through the Departments of Defense and Energy, in minority stakes in North American lithium producers and refiners. This aims to ensure access to a domestic supply of key minerals and create jobs in the minerals supply chain.
The U.S. Administration is increasingly looking to have direct equity involvement in America's critical minerals supply chain, in the race to close the gap with China. Direct Administration bets on lithium mining projects were a key theme in the sector last year.
For example, the Department of Energy has agreed to provide a $2.26 billion loan to Vancouver-based Lithium Americas Corp. to help complete a major lithium project in Humboldt County in northern Nevada. For the first draw on the DOE loan, the Department received a 5% equity stake in Lithium Americas through warrants to purchase common shares, as well as a 5% economic stake in Lithium Americas' joint venture with GM for the Thacker Pass lithium project in Nevada.
Lithium Americas targets late 2027 for the mechanical completion of the Thacker Pass project, in which GM last year bought a 38% interest for $625 million in total cash and letters of credit. Thacker Pass is expected to be the biggest lithium supply project in the Western hemisphere and is projected to raise nearly ten times the current U.S.-sourced lithium volumes.
In July 2025, U.S. rare earths miner and magnet producer MP Materials Corp announced it had entered into a public-private partnership with the Department of Defense to accelerate the build-out of an end-to-end U.S. rare earth magnet supply chain and reduce foreign dependency.
The direct involvement of the U.S. federal government highlights the importance the Administration places on securing domestically-sourced critical minerals and reducing dependence on foreign suppliers, most notably China.