GM
LACUncle Sam just showed up with a checkbook
Lithium Americas is suddenly feeling a lot less like a sleepy Canadian miner and a lot more like a strategic asset in Washington’s mineral shopping cart. According to foreign media citing Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the U.S. government has agreed to buy a 5% stake in the company and another 5% in the Thacker Pass project in Nevada.
Why this matters for your portfolio
Thacker Pass is supposed to become the biggest lithium deposit in the U.S., which is a very fancy way of saying it could turn into a critical ingredient for the battery supply chain. If you’re building EVs, grid storage, or basically anything that needs lithium-ion batteries, having a domestic source is kind of the whole point.
The money part is doing a little dance
The deal also comes with a bigger federal backstory. Lithium Americas and General Motors, which owns 38% of the mine, have reportedly been in talks with the Department of Energy about increasing a $2.3 billion loan that was granted in October 2024. That loan is meant to help finance a $2.2 billion lithium carbonate processing plant near the site.
If all goes according to plan, the plant could eventually churn out about 40,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate a year. Translation: a lot of battery material, and potentially a lot less dependence on overseas supply chains — which is exactly the kind of thing Washington likes to brag about in election-season-adjacent language.
Big picture
For LAC shareholders, this is the kind of headline that can light a match under a stock: more government support, more perceived project certainty, and a louder national-security argument for the mine. But the real test is still the same old mining test — can they actually build it on time, on budget, and without the usual industrial soap opera?