It seems that Elon Musk has something of a charmed life, and while there are continued complaints about his role as the CEO of Tesla, the company's fortunes could soon be turned around thanks to the discovery of a lithium motherlode in the USA.
While Elon Musk's electric vehicle brand originally boomed in the aftermath of Donald Trump securing victory over Kamala Harris, the wheels have (literally) come off the Tesla bandwagon.
Despite the President turning the front of the White House into his own Tesla showroom, the EV company has faced boycotts and calls for Musk to be fired, scenes of violence at dealerships, and a 70% slump in profits.
It's unclear what happens to Tesla so long as Musk is at the helm, but thanks to a $1.5 trillion discovery of lithium in the McDermitt Caldera that borders Oregon and Nevada, things are looking up for the billionaire.
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As lithium is an unsurprisingly crucial part of creating lithium-iron batteries that power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles, Tesla and other American manufacturers could be about to strike it rich(er).
How many Teslas could the McDermitt Caldera power?
With geologists estimating there's anywhere between 20 to 40 million metric tons of lithium is in the McDermitt Caldera, there were initial claims it could power 600 million Teslas. Considering the Model 3 Tesla starts at around $40,000, times that by 600 million and Tesla could be sitting on $24 trillion.
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Of course, that takes out the costs of mining, refining, and manufacturing, as well as assuming that Musk's baby got its hands on the entire deposit.
We asked ChatGPT, "How many Tesla vehicles could Elon Musk power with the lithium mined from this new discovery?" with the AI chatbot noting that some think there could be up to 120 million metric tons of lithium lurking in the clay deposits of the former supervolcano.
ChatGPT says that a typical Tesla Model 3 battery pack contains about 50 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy, which requires around 8kg of lithium.
Even going with the lower estimate of 20 million metric tons, the McDermitt Caldera might contain enough lithium to power 2.5 billion Teslas.
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This blows the 600 million figure out of the water and means everyone will likely be grabbing their shovels and heading to the McDermitt Caldera.
What does the McDermitt Caldera mean for the future of electric vehicles?
It was previously thought that Chile's Salar de Atacama salt flat had the biggest lithium deposit in the world, with an estimated 9.3 million metric tons representing over a third of the world's entire reserves.
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This would be eclipsed by the McDermitt Caldera, which would undoubtedly do much more than just potentially lining the pockets of the world's richest man.
Despite questions about the environmental and ethical conundrums of getting the lithium out of the ground, the deposit could revolutionize the EV world by bringing down production costs across the board. If this is the case, experts suggest there would be an accelerated move into the electric market after it's spent decades struggling to prove its viability.
At a time when President Trump's trade war looked like it was destined to push EV production prices through the roof due to inevitable import cost rises, $1.5 trillion of lithium might've arrived just at the right time for American manufacturers.