MP Materials has the components of a great business tale.
A bankruptcy purchase. A startup in an unassuming warehouse behind a 7-Eleven gas station. A promising partnership.
Inside its 250,000-square-foot factory in Fort Worth, executives with the Las Vegas-based rare earth magnets manufacturer took a jaunt down memory lane last week as leaders from General Motors joined them to tout the company’s latest milestone.
They’ve proven they can operate from “mine to magnet to motor” now that MP has delivered its first magnets for the legacy car company’s electric vehicles. The prototype magnets are being tested in Pontiac, Mich., for vehicles such as the Chevrolet Equinox EV, GMC Sierra EV and the Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport X.
This moment had been a long time coming since GM invested in MP years before the company had ever manufactured a magnet.
MP chairman and CEO James Litinsky said that when he co-founded the company nearly a decade ago, many believed the rare earth minerals supply chain couldn’t be restored in the U.S.
“We really thought that we could [restore it], but … as we like to say, ‘Multibillion-dollar supply chains do not move overnight,’ ” Litinsky said. “We would not be here without GM, without their commitment and their understanding to invest in what had to happen to build everything we’ll see today.”
Shilpan Amin, GM’s global chief procurement and supply chain officer, said the company reassessed its supply chain coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. They shifted away from globalization and chasing the lowest-cost parts from around the world toward regionally controlling as many operations as possible to avoid external factors impacting its supply chain.
A “buy-where-you-build strategy,” Amin said.
A big gap in GM’s chain, Amin said, was magnets and heavy rare earths.
MP was ready to fill it.
Now, metal, alloy and magnets are made in the Fort Worth factory.
The celebration of finally delivering magnets to GM called for a tour of the factory floor, giving a small group of reporters a rare glimpse inside the operations at Independence, which MP says is the world’s only fully integrated rare earth metal-to-magnet manufacturing facility.
The plant, located in Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood’s AllianceTexas, employs 350 people in its magnets division.
MP Materials’ North Texas footprint is expanding as the company constructs another facility in AllianceTexas. The $1.25 billion, 120-acre site is about 10 miles away in Northlake. The new factory, named 10X, will be like the Independence factory multiplied by five and will create more than 1,500 jobs.
When asked by The Dallas Morning News why North Texas made the most sense as the location for MP’s manufacturing operations, executives cited a strong partnership with Hillwood as one of the top reasons. And, as Texans know:
“The Fort Worth area really stood out for its ability to build,” Lund said. “You can still build things here in Fort Worth, and at a speed you can’t do in other parts of the country.”
