<span class="HighlightShare-hidden"></span><div id="ArticleBody-InlineImage-107043909"><div><div><div></div></div><div><div>Tesla CEO Elon Musk is pictured as he attends the start of the production at Tesla's &#34;Gigafactory&#34; on March 22, 2022 in Gruenheide, southeast of Berlin.</div><div>Patrick Pleul | AFP | Getty Images</div></div></div></div><div><p>Elon Musk tweeted Tesla may get into the lithium mining and refining business directly and at scale because the cost of the metal, a key component in manufacturing batteries, has gotten so high.</p><p>&#34;Price of lithium has gone to insane levels,&#34; Musk tweeted. &#34;There is no shortage of the element itself, as lithium is almost everywhere on Earth, but pace of extraction/refinement is slow.&#34;</p><div></div><p>The Tesla and SpaceX tech boss was responding to a tweet showing the average price of lithium per tonne in the last two decades, which showed a massive increase in prices since 2021. According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the cost of the metal has gone up more than 480% in the last year.</p><span></span><p>There are indeed deposits of lithium all over the United States, according to the the U.S. Geological Survey, a division of the U.S. Department of Interior.</p><p>Lithium is valuable in electric vehicle batteries because it is both the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. That means that batteries made with lithium have a high power-to-weight ratio, which is important when dealing with transportation.</p><p>Friday's tweet is not the first time Musk has raised the idea of Tesla mining its own lithium.</p><p>In 2020, Tesla secured its own rights to mine lithium in Nevada after a deal to buy a lithium mining company fell through, according to Fortune, which was siting &#34;people familiar with the matter.&#34;</p></div><div id="Placeholder-ArticleBody-Video-107001840"><div id="InlineVideo-0"><div><div></div><div><div><span class="InlineVideo-videoLabel">VIDEO</span><span class="InlineVideo-videoDurationWithLeading0">16:08</span><span class="InlineVideo-videoDuration InlineVideo-videoLabel">16:08</span></div><div>How the U.S. fell behind in lithium production</div><div>Climate</div></div></div></div><div></div></div><div id="ArticleBody-MobileAdhesion"></div>

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<p>Elon Musk said Tesla may get into mining and refining lithium directly because the costs are getting so expensive. Lithium is a key component of EV batteries.</p>

Elon Musk says Tesla may have get into lithium business because costs are so 'insane'