[defrost]

> There's no visible rhyme or reason why ..

Somebody made a case in an earlier thread (that I haven't had time to pursue) that Brazil has the largest lithium mining company (not fields or mines) with standing contracts in South America .. and they claimed that Musk wants to seed unrest | see Bolsonaro (or his party) back in to get a better deal on raw materials for his battery factories in Texas.

That has a plausible ring to it (but, again, I stress I haven't chased the details).

[piva00]

Bolsonaro wanted to remove environmental protections and exploit mining resources in the Amazon, I feel this to be the only real reason why Elon has started to pushback hard against a Lula government who is driving Brazil back into protecting the Amazon (at least somewhat, still much more than openly supporting illegal mining as Bolsonaro's government did).

[tmottabr]

Not only that..

Both Tesla and BYD had negotiations to buy Sigma Lithium, the largest lithium mining company in Latam, where the world largest lithium reserves are..

Bolsonaro, and the right in general, is known to be anti-china and could help blocking BYD acquisition, that would favor Tesla that would be able to buy it cheaper then if he has to outbid BYD...

Cutting the Chinese access to latam lithium would also harm their expansion plans and slow their grow.. That would also favor Tesla as the Chinese is owning the market in many developing contries and are growing fast even in Europe..

Even in the US the Chinese EV are a problem to Tesla, to the point the government quadrupled the import taxes on Chinese EV..

[diegoholiveira]

Australians already own those lithium mines. The largest here in Brazil is very close to my hometown.

[defrost]

I'm not across the current ownership breakdowns and state partnerships in South America (once upon a time I'd have quoted such things down to share percentages and layered subsidiary's) - the comment intrigued me as it's plausible there is some resource advantage to be gained by siding with one side of politics in Brazil, it's certainly the case that many large scale international dramas have at their core something that tracks back to resources and potential profits.

Controlling percentages can change, as can state restrictions on a number of conditions.

As I said it's not something I've dug into the details of.

[tmottabr]

Latin america have the world largest Lithium reserves, specially accross Argentina, Bolivia and Chile being the three largest and Brazil being the 7th..

The largest lithium mining company in the region is Sigma Lithium..

Tesla was negotiating to buy the Sigma Lithium but now the Chinese BYD is the favorite.. [0] [1]

China companies are currently owning the EV market in Brazil , and many other developing contries, and they have plans for both cars and batteries factories in Brazil, but they need access to lithium for that and so they are going for the lithium mining companies as well..

Musk not only need the lithium but he also want to block the grow of Chinese companies that are owning the market in many developing countries where Tesla is not present and are even growing fast in Europe..

Musk expect that a right wing government will align with him, and be in favor of blocking China and that would open the door for him to buy the mining companies instead..

[0] https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-considering-bid-sig...

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/3c55d69b-6932-4255-ad79-daeced372...

[diegoholiveira]

> Musk expect that a right wing government will align with him, and be in favor of blocking China and that would open the door for him to buy the mining companies instead..

Things in Brazil are not simple as that. Bolsonaro, the latest right wing president, did more business with china and russia than expected. He was one of the first chief of state to fly to Moscou when Russia invade Ukraine, to reinsure brazil would be neutral on this war. (same position of Lula).

[aguaviva]

Unfortunately Lula isn't quite neutral as he likes to parrot Putin's propaganda narratives, particularly as to the root "cause" of the war:

  But it’s not just Putin who is guilty. The U.S. and the E.U. are also guilty. What was the reason for the Ukraine invasion? NATO? Then the U.S. and Europe should have said: “Ukraine won’t join NATO.” That would have solved the problem.

https://time.com/6173232/lula-da-silva-transcript/

This doesn't make him stooge or ally of course. More likely it's the toxic side effect from decades of ingesting his movement's own kool-aid as far as geopolitics goes ("The enemy of my enemy can't be half bad", that sort of thing).

[tmottabr]

Lula being aligned with Russia is not news..

But Lula will not move to prevent BYD from buying Sigma Lithium or to help Elon buy it instead.

While a right wing government is not guarantied they will help Elon there is a much higher chance of it..

[tmottabr]

He did more business then expected but he did not miss an opportunity to speak ill of china.

There were even multiple letters from the Chinese embassy complaining about stuff he said..

China even blocked buying meat from Brazil for a while with the excuse of mad cow disease..

So regardless of how much business Bolsonaro did with China, he would be more inclined to help Elon in blocking China then the current left wing goverment is..

[diegoholiveira]

nah, Bolsonaro criticizing China is the same as Lula criticizing the US: they are sending signals to their supporters.

Both know that Brazil is not in a position to refuse to do business with China and the US.

[tmottabr]

Who said anything about stopping doing business with china??

What i said is that Elon expect that a right wing government would block, difficult or delay this single Chinese company from buying Sigma Lithium to help him to buy it instead..

Australia is doing the same think right now.. Australia is currently the largest exporter of Lithium in the world and Chinese companies tried to buy some mining companies there but the Australian government prohibited.. They said the Lithium mining is too important to the country and that they do not want China to control it..

There is some investigation going that China might have went ahead and acquired the mining companies in Australia indirectly via third-party companies and last i have seen Australia government had ordered those companies to sell their share or else they will seize then..

China is still one of the largest Australia trade partners, that did not stopped it from blocking the mining company acquisition..