Tech titans Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates team up in race for minerals

Times

4 days ago

A company backed by the billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos is to challenge China in the global race for the minerals that power modern technology.
KoBold Metals is to begin mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is estimated by the US to have up to $24 trillion of largely untapped resources.
The firm has secured rights to mine one of the world's largest hard-rock lithium deposits, in a region that has been fought over for decades. The venture will be a test of President Trump's pro-business foreign policy and his pledge to restore peace to an area overrun with militia and troops from Congo's neighbours. A Rwanda-backed rebel group has seized a swathe of land there, including its biggest cities, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
A peace deal signed in Washington last month between the DRC and Rwanda to end the fighting was hailed as historic by Trump. Questions remain about its details, however, including the nature of any US security guarantees and which side will benefit most from US business investment.
Despite its immense supplies of copper, cobalt, coltan, tin and uranium, the DRC is among the five poorest countries in the world. For years, US firms considered the challenges of operating in such an unstable and corrupt country too great, which has enabled Chinese firms to get ahead.
However, Trump's new focus appears to have provided enough confidence for KoBold Metals to agree a 'large-scale minerals exploration programme' over 1,600 sq km in the DRC's most volatile region.
Benjamin Katabuka, its director-general in the country, told the Financial Times that the firm was 'looking to go big in this country … investments could be in the billions'.
KoBold Metals pledged to develop local talent and to 'create thousands of high-paying Congolese jobs for decades'.
Another US consortium, including a company led by former US special forces staff, has emerged as the leading bidder for Chemaf Resources Ltd, a Congolese copper and cobalt producer, after Kinshasa blocked its sale to a Chinese state-owned firm. President Tshisekedi of the DRC has long sought to attract more western investment to counterbalance China's dominance.
He approached the US in February with an offer of mining rights in exchange for security support and has since backed calls for Trump to win the Nobel peace prize.
KoBold Metals' agreement to develop the Roche Dure lithium deposit at Manono is contingent on resolving a long-running dispute over rights to the site between the Congolese government, Australia-based AVZ Minerals and China's state-backed Zijin Mining.
The US start-up will also face the challenge of operating in a sector fraught with reports of labour abuses and environmental harm, and being judged against its billionaire backers' humanitarian and green commitments. The Bezos Earth Fund has pledged $110 million in grants to protect the Congo basin and the Gates Foundation helps fund agricultural development in the region.
Founded in 2018, KoBold Metals distinguishes itself from traditional mining companies by using artificial intelligence to 'scrape' geological archives and algorithms to identify potential mineral deposits. In 2024, it found Zambia's largest copper deposit in a century.
The conflict in the eastern DRC stems from the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda when nearly two million Hutus, including those accused of the slaughter, fled into Congo fearing reprisals. Rwanda has repeatedly intervened, citing threats from Hutu militias, and an estimated six million people have died in fighting, famine and disease. Analysts say much of the violence is driven by competition over natural resources.
Reports by the UN and a number of western governments, including the US and EU, have presented evidence that Rwanda is backing and arming the M23 rebel movement in part to loot minerals from the DRC and export them as their own. Rwanda denies the allegation.