[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..

[diegoholiveira]

> 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..

My point is about this: Musk's expectations will most likely not be met, even with a right wing president. Brazil and China are strong trading partners (and friends nowadays, with Brics became a reality).

[tmottabr]

And what i am saying is that i do not agree with that take..

While a right wing government is not guarantied that Elon will be able to buy Sigma Lithium, i am 100% sure that a right wing government will work to try block or at least delay as much as possible the acquisition by BYD..

Specially in the unlikely case that Trump win the US election, remembering that Elon is supporting him.. US will not only support blocking China from increasing their foothold in the region, they would likely pressure Brazil for it..

It might even happen with Kamala but to a smaller degree..