- Rare earth metals make the powerful magnets decisive To produce fighter planes, smartphones and engines that turns on the arms of Tesla’s humanoid robot, which is called optimus. CEO Elon Musk is optimistic that the company will have thousands of Optimus units by the end of the year, but the company may be waiting for an export license from China that controls over 90% of the market for six months or more.
Elon Muschus is confident that Tesla will have a million effect Humanoid Optimus robot Until the end of the decade – or even 2029. At the moment, however, production will only move as quickly as the slowest and least happy component in the entire matter, “he told investors on Tuesday – and President Donald Trump’s tariff fight with China has created a significant street lock.
As part of his retaliation against Trump’s trade subjects Export controls With seven rare -dated metals, China’s dominance underlines in a market that decides to manufacture fighter planes and smartphones. Remarkably for Tesla, these metals are of crucial importance for the small but powerful Motors Muschus says It will soon enable optimus robots to do homework and work on the assembly lines of the Electric-Vehicle Maker.
“I am confident that we will overcome these problems,” said Musk on Tuesday during Tesla’s profit call in the first quarter. “And we will have thousands of Optimus robots by the end of this year.”
Nevertheless, Tesla apparently has no choice but to go China. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, the country controls almost 70% of all US imports from rare earths.
However, this status only begins to describe the China’s Minerals’ scale. The engines in Optimus require these metals such as their ultra-magnetic properties. According to a report from 2023 from the Aspen InstituteBeijing controls 92% of global magnetic production from rare earths.
These so -called “permanent magnets” are generally also of crucial importance for the production of electric vehicles, but Musk said that Tesla “Overall” does not need them. However, he said that the design of Optimus requires that these magnets supply the arms of the robot with engines that do not overheat or break in a small room.
“These were affected by the China supply chain, which needed an export license to send all magnets for rare earth,” said Musk. “So we work with China. Hopefully we will receive a license for the use of the rare -go magnets.”
These licenses for shipments to the USA will probably be processed for at least six months, Yang Jie, a lawyer for export control in the law firm Shanghai, Huiye, told The New York Times.
“China wants some assurance that they are not used for military purposes, which obviously not,” said Musk. “They only go into a humanoid robot.”
Tesla violate tariffs
Muschus can have output More than 250 million US dollars and a lot of time to help Trump gain the presidency that Dan Ives from Wedbush Securities’ called A “poker movement for eternity” at that time, but it is clear that the administration is chaotic Tariff rollout Tesla did only a few favors.
While Muschus led this controversial Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – he told investors soon back From this role to Tesla’s resumption – his requests to avoid escalating trade voltages seem to have largely fallen on deaf ears. The richest man in the world has repeated sparing With Peter Navarro, one of Trump’s best trade advisors, who described Musk as “idiot” and “Dumber as a sack of brick sack”.
Tesla’s net income decreased by 71% in the first quarter compared to the previous year, since the car revenue decreased under $ 14 billion for the first time in almost three years.
According to Musk, the localized supply chains of the company have brought into a better position in markets such as America, Europe and China Tesla than the competitors to transform the trade voltages. Nevertheless, he admitted that the tariffs are hard for a company if the margins are still low. The gross margin of Tesla fell to 16.3% in the first quarter, compared to 17.4% in the same period of the previous year.
“I have often said that I think lower tariffs are generally a good idea for prosperity,” said Musk. “But this decision is fundamentally the elected representative of the people, the President of the United States JPmorgan ChaseFinance minister Scott Bessent signaled a possible “de -escalation” with China. Trump also indicated Customs will fall significantly When a trade agreement has been reached.
This story was originally on Fortune.com