For years, U.S. President Donald Trump has openly displayed his disdain for the clean energy and electric vehicle sectors. In the early days of his second term, Trump stalled funding for EV charging infrastructure while pushing fossil fuels. In July 2025, the GOP-sponsored One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) rolled back EV incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, terminating the $7,500 new and $4,000 used EV tax credits in September 2025, and cutting back infrastructure and manufacturing subsidies. Yet, this giant push to secure the domestic critical minerals supply chain could end up inadvertently giving a boost to the alternative energy sector.
Last week, Trump unveiled a $3-billion federal investment in a slew of critical minerals projects across the country during an industry roundtable at the State Department, part of his ongoing efforts to scale domestic production, secure technological sovereignty and decouple from Chinese battery supply chains.
While the Trump administration views these initiatives as a way to boost the domestic defense and aerospace sectors while cutting reliance on China, EVs actually represent the leading demand driver for these minerals, accounting for well over half of total global demand for critical minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel. The sheer scale of mineral production required to make mining companies profitable will likely force these companies to cater to commercial EV manufacturing as well.
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The $3-billion package features substantial funding driven by defense and export-import agencies. The biggest deal was a $1.4-billion conditional loan from the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) to Sila Nanotechnologies to scale up the production of next-generation silicon anode battery materials in Washington state. That was the largest single battery manufacturing commitment from the Pentagon. The capital will fund a fivefold expansion of Sila’s plant in Moses Lake, Washington, where the company plans to deploy next-generation modular production lines. The facility currently produces roughly 2 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of silicon-carbon anode material annually and aims to scale up to supply over 100,000 electric vehicles and other critical tech sectors.
At the same event, Canada-based Lithium Americas (NYSE:LAC) officially unlocked its massive federal funding package, securing the first $435 million drawdown from its $2.23 billion U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) loan to build the Thacker Pass project in Nevada. Last year, the DOE restructured the loan to take a 5% equity stake in Lithium Americas as well as a 5% stake in its Thacker Pass joint venture with General Motors (NYSE:GM). The Thacker Pass Lithium Project in Humboldt County, northern Nevada, is designed to produce roughly 40,000 metric tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate annually in its first phase. This initial capacity is set to supply enough lithium for approximately 800,000 EVs per year, with plant completion targeted for late 2027. That’s more than the roughly 550,000 EVs that Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) sold in the U.S. in 2025.
