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Key Points
- MP Materials is transforming from a rare earth miner into the first fully integrated U.S. mine-to-magnet producer, reducing America’s reliance on China.
- Major agreements with General Motors, Apple, and the Pentagon provide MP Materials with prominent customers, government backing, and significant long-term growth potential.
- Despite the company’s promising business transformation, MP Materials stock remains below its long-term trend—making it a compelling investment to watch, but not yet a confirmed buy.
For most of its history, Mountain Pass was a productive pit in the Mojave Desert…
It’s in San Bernardino County, California. And from the 1960s through the 1980s, it supplied most of the world’s rare earth elements.
The Cold War ran partly on what came out of that ground.
Then came the China problem…
China used cheap subsidies and low prices to make Mountain Pass unviable.
Molycorp, the company behind the mine, tried to adapt and compete. It raised capital and built new plants.
But unfortunately, in 2015, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And the mine went dark.
Then, in 2017, MP Materials (MP) bought it out of bankruptcy.
For the first few years, MP dug ore out of the ground, turned it into concentrate, and shipped it out. Here is the uneasy truth, though…
Most of that material went straight to China for refining.
The U.S. had a rare earth mine – but it still needed China to finish the job.
That’s the version of MP Materials investors still picture.
But that’s no longer the business…
How MP Materials Became a Rare Earth Powerhouse
MP Materials is now building a mine-to-magnet supply chain – the first of its kind in the U.S.
It’s not just mining rare earths. It’s now turning them into the magnets that run modern life.
These magnets matter more than most people know.
They’re rare earth magnets. And they’re inside electric-vehicle (“EV”) motors, wind turbines, jet fighters, submarines, and even your smartphone.
If you take apart a modern EV, you’ll find several pounds of them.
China makes about 90% of the world’s rare earth magnets. That’s because the country spent 40 years building every step of the process while the West walked away.
MP is trying to change that…
The Strategic Assets Driving MP Materials’ Growth
Mountain Pass is the only active rare earth mine in the U.S. – and it’s the second-largest one in the world…
In the first quarter of 2026, it hit record output of Neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) oxides. This is the key compound for the strongest magnets. Its sales more than doubled year over year.
The more interesting story is in Fort Worth, Texas at a plant MP calls Independence. This is where the company made its first commercial rare earth magnets in December 2025.
Overall, MP’s magnetics unit brought in $21.1 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2026. That’s 4 times what it made a year earlier.
The company’s cash earnings increased to $9.6 million during the quarter.
These numbers remain small today. But the direction is clear…
Apple, GM, and the Pentagon Are Betting on MP Materials
General Motors (GM) was the first major customer, signing a deal in 2022. Deliveries began in March 2025. And MP is now at the core of the automaker’s domestic EV supply chain.
Then came Apple (AAPL) with a $500 million deal in July 2025…
MP will supply Apple with magnets made from recycled rare earth stock. Apple put $200 million in upfront payments toward this initiative.
The shipments will start in 2027.
Apple’s rare earth magnets currently come from China. This deal changes that.
The third is the Pentagon. In July 2025, the U.S. Department of Defense (“DOD”) bought a 15% stake in MP for $400 million. It was the first time the DOD had taken equity in a critical minerals company.
The Pentagon also signed a 10-year deal to buy 7,000 metric tons of magnets per year with a price floor of $110 per kilogram.
The U.S. government isn’t just a customer. It’s a shareholder with a decade-long commitment.
Why MP Materials Stock Isn’t a Buy Yet
MP is building a new plant in Northlake, Texas…
It’s 10 times the size of Independence. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Goldman Sachs (GS) are funding about $1 billion of the project. And the first products are expected in 2028.
In the first quarter of 2026, MP’s revenue hit $90.6 million – with a net loss of nearly $8 million. But that loss was expected, given the scale of spending underway.
MP’s cash stood at $1.7 billion. So, the balance sheet isn’t currently under stress.
As CEO James Litinsky said in the first-quarter 2026 earnings call…
We are the national champion with a unique platform grounded in real assets, real production, and real customers.
The story is compelling. The assets are real. The customers are signed. And the government has skin in the game.
But the stock happens to tell a different story right now…
MP currently trades below its long-term trend line. The stock is down 23% in the past year. Meanwhile, the State Street SPDR S&P 500 Fund (SPY) has climbed 19%.
There is a gap between a good story and a good trade…
Right now, MP is the former.
The thesis is right. The timing, on the other hand, isn’t confirmed.
Watch it closely.
The moment the stock starts acting like the business, it may be worth revisiting.
The Long-Term Investment Case for MP Materials
China put MP on its export control list in June. That happened just days after the G7 agreed to cap rare earth imports from any one country below 60% by 2030.
Beijing sees what MP is building and moved to block it.
That tells you something about how real this story is…
The U.S. rare earth industry faded over the course of 40 years – not all at once, just slowly.
MP is the most serious effort to put it back together. A working mine, a running magnet plant, a Pentagon shareholder, and three of the most important buyers in the world.
The business is ahead of its stock. That gap will close eventually, one way or another.
Good investing,
John Evelius
Editor’s Note: Marc Chaikin, the founder of Chaikin Analytics, built an award-winning system that flagged Nvidia as a BUY before it soared as high as 45,000%. It also turned “bearish” on software stocks two months before they crashed this year. Now, Marc’s warning that a “jump to lightspeed” has taken place behind the doors of a Silicon Valley AI lab – and says the repercussions are about to cleave the market in half this summer. This 60-year Wall Street legend has a FREE Hotlist of stocks to buy and an urgent Hitlist of stocks to sell now. Click for the full story, including stock names and tickers here…
