MP Materials

What it is

MP Materials Corp. (NYSE: MP) is a US rare earth mining and materials company, and the sole operator of an active rare earth mine in the United States. Its Mountain Pass Mine, in San Bernardino County, California, produces rare earth oxide concentrate rich in neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), the feedstock for neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) permanent magnets used in electric motors, wind turbines, and precision-guided weapons. The company is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, and was founded by James Litinsky, who serves as chairman and CEO. MP went public via SPAC merger in November 2020.

History

Mountain Pass was the world's dominant rare earth supplier through the 1960s and 1980s, operated by Molycorp. Chinese production at lower cost drove prices down sharply, and Molycorp filed for US Bankruptcy Court protection in 2015. Litinsky's group acquired the Mountain Pass asset out of bankruptcy in July 2017 and restarted mining and processing in January 2018. Through 2024, roughly 80% of MP Materials' revenue came from selling rare earth concentrate to China's Shenghe Resources, which processed it into magnets, reflecting a persistent gap in US downstream capacity. That model collapsed in 2025 when China imposed export controls and tariffs on rare earths, and Beijing added MP Materials to its Ministry of Commerce blacklist in June 2025, as detailed in China blacklists MP Materials and USA Rare Earth, then expands the regime.

Current state

MP halted all shipments to China after the June 2025 blacklisting and accelerated domestic processing. As of Q1 2026, Mountain Pass produced 12,983 metric tons of rare earth oxide, up 6% year on year. NdPr output reached a record 917 metric tons, up 63% year on year, reflecting a deliberate shift toward higher-value separated products.

On the downstream side, the Fort Worth, Texas "Independence" facility, the first integrated rare earth metal-to-magnet plant built in the US in a generation, commenced commercial NdFeB magnet manufacturing in December 2025. Its output supplies General Motors under a long-term agreement.

The US Department of Defense signed a partnership on July 10, 2025, documented in MP Materials starts NdFeB magnet production in Texas with DoD as top shareholder. The DoD acquired approximately 15% of common stock through US$400 million in convertible preferred stock at US$30.03 per share, becoming the company's largest shareholder. The DoD also committed a US$110 per kilogram price floor for NdPr over 10 years and agreed to purchase 100% of output from a planned 10,000-metric-ton "10X" magnet campus. The 10X facility, announced February 26, 2026, will be built on a 120-acre site in Northlake, Texas, less than 10 miles from Independence; Texas offered approximately US$200 million in state and local incentives. Commissioning is set for 2028, creating more than 1,500 direct jobs. MP Materials also signed a US$500 million supply and recycling agreement with Apple in 2025.

Relationships

MP Materials is structurally upstream of the US defence and EV sectors: no domestic NdFeB magnet supply chain exists without Mountain Pass ore. The DoD price floor mechanism became a template for allied minerals programs tracked in US extends DoD-style price floors to allies as Project Vault and G7 stockpile pledges reshape the Western minerals toolkit, including floors negotiated with Japan and the EU by February 2026. MP competes with Australia's Lynas Rare Earths, which operates a US government-funded heavy rare earth processing facility under development in Texas. China's Shenghe Resources, once the primary offtake buyer, is now an adversarial reference point. A US$150 million DoD loan is financing heavy rare earth separation expansion at Mountain Pass, targeting reduced dependence on China for dysprosium and terbium.

What to watch

• Whether the 10X Northlake campus achieves its 2028 commissioning target on schedule, given the scale of capital deployment over a compressed timeline.
• NdPr spot pricing relative to the US$110/kg DoD floor; commercial viability for non-government buyers depends on that gap narrowing.
• China's export licensing regime, in force since July 1, 2025 under China's MOFCOM Announcement No. 26, which can restrict oxide and metal exports regardless of who holds the mine.
• Heavy rare earth output at Mountain Pass: dysprosium and terbium remain almost entirely China-sourced for the US defence supply chain, and the separation expansion is the key watch item into 2027.