Top Critical Mineral Mining Companies in the United States

As the critical minerals race between the United States and China intensifies, control over the raw materials powering EVs, AI infrastructure, defense systems, and clean energy has become a defining geopolitical battleground. What was once treated as a niche mining and commodities issue now sits at the center of industrial policy, national security planning, and long-term economic competitiveness.

Below is a list of critical minerals companies operating in the United States that are central to America’s industrial and national security strategy.

MP Materials owns and operates Mountain Pass, the only large-scale rare earth mine in the United States. The site produces key rare earth elements such as neodymium and praseodymium, which are essential for permanent magnets used in EV motors, wind turbines, robotics, and military hardware.

Strategically, MP Materials represents America’s most direct attempt to break China’s dominance over rare earths. While most global rare-earth processing still occurs overseas, MP is investing heavily in downstream processing and magnet manufacturing to build a fully domestic rare-earth supply chain.

Notably, in July 2025, MP announced a public-private partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense to accelerate U.S. rare-earth magnet independence. Similarly, in July 2025, MP Materials and Apple Inc. formalized a $500 million agreement under which MP will produce 100% recycled rare earth magnets for Apple products at its Fort Worth, Texas, facility.

In November 2025, MP Materials, the U.S. Department of War (formerly the Department of Defense), and the Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden) signed a strategic joint venture agreement to build a rare-earth refining facility in Saudi Arabia.

Albemarle now sits at the center of the U.S. lithium story. What makes Albemarle uniquely important for the U.S. is not just its size but its geography and the policy architecture wrapped around it. Almost all of America’s tiny share of global lithium production—less than 2%—comes from Albemarle’s Silver Peak operation in Nevada, currently the only active lithium mine in the country, and the company is moving to restart Kings Mountain in North Carolina, one of the few known hard‑rock deposits.

Albemarle’s full-year 2024 revenue (net sales) was approximately $5.38 billion, down about 44% from $9.62 billion in 2023 as lithium prices reset from boom-time highs.

Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) is a leading American mining company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, and is one of the world’s largest publicly traded producers of copper. While it is a U.S. company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, it has a massive global footprint.

Its operations focus on exploring and mining copper, gold, and molybdenum (a metal used to strengthen steel), with copper being its primary revenue driver. This makes the company a critical player in the global supply chain for infrastructure, electronics, and the green energy transition, as copper is essential for electric vehicles and renewable energy grids.

The company’s mining portfolio is anchored by several "world-class" assets across three continents. Its most famous operation is the Grasberg minerals district in Indonesia, which is one of the largest copper and gold deposits on Earth. In the Americas, it operates seven open-pit copper mines in the United States (including the massive Morenci mine in Arizona) and two large copper mines in South America (Cerro Verde in Peru and El Abra in Chile).

Piedmont Lithium is an emerging U.S.-linked lithium producer and developer focused on building domestic upstream supply for batteries used in electric vehicles and grid storage. In full year 2024, the company reported approximately $99.9 million in revenue, more than doubling from about $39.8 million in 2023 as shipments ramped.

Piedmont achieved record shipments of spodumene concentrate in Q4 2024 — roughly 55,700 dry metric tons.

Its portfolio includes the Carolina Lithium project in North Carolina — one of the few hard-rock lithium deposits in the U.S. granted mining permits — and a stake in North American Lithium (NAL) in Canada, which serves as an existing production hub. The company also has plans for a Tennessee Lithium conversion facility under earlier U.S. DOE grant frameworks, signaling its broader ambition to develop an integrated U.S. lithium value chain from ore to hydroxide

Mosaic is a new addition to the "Critical Mineral" conversation in the US. For years, it was viewed strictly as a fertilizer company. However, as of November 2025, the US government officially added its two primary products—Phosphate and Potash—to the USGS Critical Minerals List.

This designation fundamentally changes Mosaic's status from an agricultural stock to a strategic, critical mineral producer.

Mosaic is the largest US producer of finished phosphate products. They mine rock in Central Florida and process it into fertilizer. Phosphate is now considered critical because the US has become increasingly reliant on imports, and global supply is concentrated in countries such as Morocco and China. While their massive mines are primarily in Saskatchewan (Canada), they operate the Carlsbad Mine in New Mexico.

These companies matter now because the U.S. has reached an inflection point where critical minerals are no longer a future constraint—they are a present bottleneck. Demand from EVs, AI data centers, grid expansion, and defense manufacturing is rising faster than new supply can be permitted, financed, and built.

At the same time, China continues to control a disproportionate share of global mining, processing, and refining capacity, giving Beijing structural leverage over materials that underpin modern industrial power. This has turned minerals like lithium, copper, rare earths, and nickel into strategic assets rather than cyclical commodities.