Elon Musk may help sanctioned Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler get a little richer.
Tesla, the company Musk runs, struck a deal last month with Glencore to buy as much as 6 000 tons of cobalt annually for use in the rechargeable batteries that power its electric vehicles. Glencore, in turn, is obligated to pay Gertler about 2.5% of sales from its mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo – royalty rights he acquired from State-owned miner Gecamines.
What makes the arrangement eye-catching is that Gertler has been blacklisted from the US financial system since December 2017. Now he stands to indirectly benefit from an American company’s payments, if only by a few million dollars a year, since most of the cobalt Tesla is buying will come from Glencore’s Congolese mines, according to people familiar with the matter.