Bloomberg调查USA Rare Earth获16亿美元政府承诺背后的利

Congratulations on this story. It's a great piece. Yeah. I encourage everybody to check it out. Uh, before we get into some of the numbers here. Yeah, the assets that that USA Rare Earth has, uh, what are they? Okay. And what is available now for them to actually mine? Okay. Uh, they have a mine deposit in Round Top, which is outside of El Paso, Texas, 75 miles or so. They have a man magnet manufacturing plant in Stillwater, Oklahoma that's still getting up to scale.

They now also have a metallization company in the United Kingdom and a processing technology that they've bought into in France. And then, uh, they now have a Brazilian rare earth mine, um, which we get into the story that they're still trying to figure that out. So that is effectively all the assets they have, which, by the way, in 2019, when I first started covering this company, they had a stake, a percentage stake in the mine in Texas.

And that's all they were. So yay! Problem solved. US has all the critical minerals or rare materials that it needs, right? Yeah. I mean, listen, this is like, how do you end up doing a story about a company called USA Rare Earth that most people have never heard of? Well, you find out that they get a $1.6 billion commitment from the Commerce Department led by Howard Leatherneck. And then you find out that they raised a $1.5 billion pipe concurrently with the promised commitment from the United States federal government and the Co placement agents on that pipe were Cantor, Fitzgerald and Mollis.

And there were about $50 million in fees that were earned from that. Now, we don't know how those fees are playing the Cantor Fitzgerald Nick connection place for people who might not be familiar. Cantor Fitzgerald is the former, um, financial firm that Howard Nick ran for a very long time. And for those who were, uh, you know, paying attention to, unfortunately, the 25 year anniversary of 9/11, the Commerce Secretary.

Nick did talk about the fact that he lost most of his firm during 9/11 and devastating, devastating moment. So there's real history here for Cantor Fitzgerald. He left Cantor Fitzgerald when he became the commerce secretary, and his sons took over leading the company. Now, listen, our our story is, is not going into saying that that's necessarily something wrong happened here. But, um, they were the placement agent on this, uh, the company.

Um, Barbara Hunton herself told us was struggling to get attention in Washington before she came in on October 1st of 2025. Those are on words in the interview. Uh, and and now we're sitting here nine months after the Commerce Department announced that it was going to give a commitment to USA worth. And, um, we we finally did a deep dive connecting all the dots of what this company is now versus what it was, all the money that has been swirling in one round from the private markets, but also from the public, money that's been given to it.

And we felt like there's a whole lot here that readers, uh, Bloomberg, uh, followers could, could really benefit from hearing. I just want to say a spokesperson for Cantor said the firm has a long standing relationship with the USA. That's right. Predates the Knicks appointment and helped with its public listing in early 2025. Quote Cantor had no role in USA rare earths negotiations or financing arrangements with the U.S. government, including any matters involving Secretary Ludwick, who is fully divested from the firm.

The spokesperson said. And then, a spokesperson for the Commerce Department said that neither Nick nor anyone else at the agency has interacted with or had any discussions whatsoever with Cantor Fitzgerald regarding the rare earth minerals industry. Well, then I guess I don't know if this is a it makes sense. But then one would ask, well, how did that relationship happen then? How did that placement happen? Is it just random?

Like how does. It's a question. Let's listen. We looked at this story at let's talk about the fundamentals of the company. We all of us have spent 18 months talking about questionable connections between the Trump administration and money going out the door. And who's betting benefiting from it? One of the things that I have been trying to do is look at the actual companies getting the money and ask the question, simple question who's doing the due diligence around this company?

And when you dig into the company, what do they have to offer? We looked at USA Rare Earth and we said, this is a company that has a mine in Texas, that we have people on the record who have looked at this deposit for years who said it is a mound of dirt. We had people who have looked at the surveyor de mine in Brazil and they said, and we have this in our story. According to people familiar who have who have seen the mine, who understand the mine, the trouble they are having is processing the rare earths that are being pulled out of the ground.

Okay. This is the the DFC, one of the agencies in the United States government has given major backing to Sarah Verdi. The DoD has also been giving major backing to Sarah Verdi USA, where Earth came in and bought Sara Verdi. We have been told. According to people familiar, they cannot separate the clay from the rock. The screen. You have to send a ton of water through this deposit to separate the rare earth rock from the clay.

The screens are. The grids are too large. And the screens or the ripping through the screens. People are not. People have told us that these problems on processing at Sara Verdi are enough of a problem for them to stay away from investing in it. When you start talking to people in the market who have looked at all these different assets at USA Earth, have they have major questions around them. Now, I should be clear, if there's enough money to make them work in enough time, maybe they can make them work.

But I think what's really interesting and probably smart and to look into is that ultimately it's money from the U.S. government. It's taxpayer money, taxpayer dollars that ultimately goes to this right now. Not a not a dime has gone out the door from the Commerce Department on. On the U.S.A.. Where or why to be. They have certain milestones they have to reach in order to get that money from the Commerce Department. So far, they have not reached those milestones as of the latest public filings that they have out there.

But, you know, you start having the question of you raised a billion and a half dollars from the private markets on the promise to those two, those investors that that that the United States government would be backing this. And it's why they won't. I'm not saying they will or they won't. I'm just saying if they never end up getting a dime from the government because they can't reach the milestones of the of the original promise they had to the government, then.

Then what? You just raised a billion and a half dollar pipe, uh, you know, back in on January that you ended up using to make all these other investments and purchases, and then you never came through on the other stuff. And the government dollars never investors who made the investment based on the assumption that that government money was coming, which was a big endorsement. It's why we started all talking about the company in a big way that that's exactly right.

And, you know, this is this is the questions when you talk to investors, right, who are looking at all these companies that the government is giving money to, not just using rare earth. They're constantly saying, where's the diligence? You know, does this technology work? Does this deposit have what it has, you know, will this be a solution? What is the revenue here? I mean, we we look through the public filings. I mean, you know, Sarah Verdi, if it is a great deposit, what we found was they made $2.5 million in revenue in 2025 and are operating at a loss.

I talked to a number of investors who go to us in the mining space. That's not what we technica