Son of ex-Alamo Rent a Car owner went from hip hop label founder to lithium leader. He’s even eyeing the White House

Detailed summary

The brash EnergyX aims to expand into the world's largest lithium producer with major hubs in the U.S. and South America.

An Elon Musk acolyte, Tesla driver, and serial entrepreneur, Teague Egan was imagining ways of breaking into renewable energy in 2018 while he took a vacation to Bolivia. He learned about the country’s salt flats, their lithium reserves potential and, eventually, about the industry’s antiquated lithium mining techniques.

“As an entrepreneur, I knew there had to be a better way. That was my ‘aha’ moment,” said Egan, now 38. He really began to think about how the lithium-ion batteries in Tesla’s electric vehicles are made and their massive global growth potential.

He quickly founded EnergyX—short for Energy Exploration Technologies—and this year became the only company mining lithium commercially in the U.S. with modern direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology at its new Project Lonestar site in East Texas. This summer, EnergyX also opened a project in Chile extracting 170 metric tons of lithium a year.

But these are still just demonstration plants. The real growth is about to begin, he touted.

“EnergyX is just going to keep our head down and move towards commercialization,” Egan told Fortune.

The plan is to commence construction next year. EnergyX aims to bring its Black Giant lithium project in Chile online by the end of 2028 with a first phase producing 7,500 tons per year and expanding to 52,500 tons annually by 2030. Project Lonestar in Texas would quickly follow with a 15,000-ton facility in 2029 and growing to 50,000 tons by 2031.

These are admittedly aggressive timelines, but Egan is confident the progress will pick up quickly after achieving a watershed moment in October of inking its largest customer.

But first, let’s take a quick step back. Two years ago, The Wall Street Journal ran this headline about Egan: “He Wants to Be the Lithium King. Run for President. And Live to 150.” The wording is brash but not inaccurate—yes, he says he still wants to occupy the White House and live well past 100—and he comes across as an over-the-top tech bro.

Egan went to work…

Opening of the article, excerpted from Fortune. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.