In 1982, two labs on opposite sides of the Pacific stumbled onto the same thing. At General Motors in Detroit, a physicist named John Croat melted neodymium, iron, and boron together and measured a magnetic field stronger than anything he'd ever seen. Six thousand miles away in Osaka, a researcher named Masato Sagawa did the exact same thing at Sumitomo Special Metals. Neither knew about the other.

They had created the neodymium-iron-boron magnet — the strongest permanent magnet ever made. For 44 years, nothing has topped it. Every EV motor, every wind turbine generator, every guided missile, every MRI machine runs on some version of what those two labs found. And every one of them needs rare earths to work.

That's what makes the news from Minnesota worth watching. On September 9, Honda Motor invested in Niron Magnetics, a startup that makes permanent magnets out of iron and nitrogen — no rare earths at all. The same day, Niron raised the first steel column on its new 287,000-square-foot plant in Sartell, Minnesota. It's the first factory anywhere built to produce iron nitride magnets at commercial scale.

Honda's logic is plain. China makes over 90% of the world's rare earth magnets. Export controls resume November 10. The DFARS ban hits January 1. Every automaker on earth needs magnets for motors, and one country still decides who gets them. So Honda went looking for a way out. It invested through its Xcelerator Ventures program. The amount was not disclosed.

Niron's plant will produce up to 1,500 tonnes of iron nitride magnets per year once it's running in early 2027. That's tiny. The world makes over 200,000 tonnes of NdFeB magnets annually, and China pours most of them. But Niron isn't operating alone. The plant has a $150 million conditional loan from the Department of Defense, a $52.2 million federal tax credit, and a $10 million Minnesota state grant. Washington is putting money behind this.

The catch is proof. Iron nitride magnets still need to match NdFeB on heat resistance, coercivity, and manufacturing yield — at volumes that matter. Nobody has done that yet. Rare Earth Exchanges called Niron "a strategically meaningful development project, not an offtake commitment or proof that rare-earth-free motors are near broad scale."

That's the right way to read it. But 44 years is a long time for one material to sit on the throne. And the fact that a Japanese automaker is now funding an American lab to dethrone it tells you how fast the ground is shifting under the rare earth supply chain.

Why does Warren Buffett own more than 20% of American Express?

Because “tollbooth investments” are among the most lucrative on earth.

They don’t build, make, or lend anything.

They just collect a tiny toll over, and over, and over again.

And now, thanks to a brand new investing exchange…

You can effectively own the next great tollbooth.

Billions of transactions fly across this digital tollbooth every single day.

Which is why the CEO of BlackRock Larry Fink believes it will become 100 times bigger than Bitcoin.

Financial Times says it puts America “on the verge of a financial revolution.”

Yahoo Finance says it could unlock $400 trillion.

I was personally involved in advocating for this law on Capitol Hill, to enable this digital tollbooth.

Which is why I know as much as $2.6 quadrillion could pour onto it in the months ahead.

And you don’t need to be wealthy to stake your claim.

This time, a $2 stake is all it takes.

Click here, and I’ll show you the simple move you can make today.

China has a magnet problem it doesn't usually talk about in public. At a September 10 meeting in Hefei, the Magnetic Materials Branch of the China Rare Earth Industry Association gathered producers, researchers, and downstream users. The message from CREIA President Li Wei was blunt: too much total capacity on the low end, not enough high-performance specialty magnets on the high end. That matters because the high-end magnets are exactly what EV motors and defense systems require. China can flood the world with commodity-grade magnets. The ones that count are still hard to make — even for them.

The January 1 DFARS deadline is 106 days away. This week Rare Earth Exchanges published equity valuation rankings for Western rare earth companies based on how close they are to delivering mine-to-magnet product that meets the new rules. The ban covers the full chain — no magnets sourced from China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea in U.S. weapons systems. Most Western companies are still years away from producing qualified magnets at scale. REEx's rankings put a number on the gap between stock prices and actual readiness.

The International Energy Agency's new rare earth pathways report, published to support France's G7 presidency, lays out the math. By 2035, existing and announced capacities outside China are expected to cover about half of mining needs and a quarter of refining needs. Magnets are worse: less than a fifth of non-Chinese magnet demand will be met by planned capacity. You can mine all the ore you want. If nobody outside China can turn it into a finished magnet, the dependency stays. Demand for magnet rare earths has already doubled since 2015, and the IEA projects another 30% increase by 2030.

The world’s richest man… is about to get a lot richer.

Elon Musk just signed a contract…

That could make him the world’s first trillionaire.

But he has to do one thing…

Or he doesn’t get paid a dime.

You see, Elon just created a device he believes will be “the biggest product ever.”

He thinks it could 70X investors’ money.

And he could be on the verge of a major announcement…

By the end of this month.

Maybe even tomorrow on X.

He’s going to make this game-changing device available to the public.

He has to sell 1 million to become a trillionaire.

Would you bet against him?

Click here to find out you can invest in this 70X AI agent.

The REEx Structural Momentum Index ticked up from 5.0 to 5.1 this week — "transitional, improving slowly." Processing capacity rose from 2.5 to 2.7 on the USA Rare Earth groundbreaking, but China's strategic pressure score also climbed to 7.3. Three dates dominate the watchlist: the Sept 24 summit, the Nov 10 export deadline, and the Jan 1 DFARS cutoff.

— Rare Earth Exchanges

The NdPr oxide benchmark slipped to $96.69/kg on September 5 SMM data, staying below the $110/kg floor the Pentagon backed through its MP Materials deal for a second straight pricing cycle. The gap suggests the Chinese domestic market is not yet pricing in the Western supply stress that retail and FOB markets reflect.

— rare-earth-mining.com / SMM

Cerium fell 5.83% to $3.88/kg in September, following August's 13.8% decline. No demand driver is visible that would absorb the structural oversupply from light rare earth refining. Cerium is the most abundant rare earth and a byproduct of nearly every rare earth mine on the planet.

— rare-earth-mining.com

A Critical Materials Market Report covering rare earth magnets, green hydrogen, battery recycling, and thermal management was published this week. The report identifies permanent magnets as the largest demand driver in the critical materials space through 2036, with EV motors and wind power as the primary end markets.

— GlobeNewsWire