USA Rare Earth CEO Barbara Humpton spoke with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick one month after taking the helm at the critical minerals startup, pitching its assets to the federal government.
Humpton’s November 2025 conversation with Lutnick would ultimately lead to a proposed deal that will provide USA Rare Earth with about $1.6 billion in funding, subject to certain conditions, and a U.S. government equity stake in the company.
The CEO, in an exclusive interview with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan on Monday, gave rare insight into how the federal government plans equity stakes in mining companies and aims to reduce U.S. dependence on China.
“One of my first objectives was to make sure the U.S. government understood the assets we have under management, so they could begin to see how that fits into the various issues they are so urgently working on,” Humpton told CNBC in the interview.
Seasoned executive
Humpton, who took the reins at USA Rare Earth in October, is a seasoned executive who led Siemens USA for seven years. She was also an executive at defense contractors Booz Allen Hamilton and Lockheed Martin earlier in her career.
The deal disclosed on Monday briefly sent USA Rare Earth’s stock soaring 29% before it settled back to about a 7% gain. The agreement could turn USA Rare Earth into a second leg of the rare earth supply chain that the Trump administration is building. The Pentagon struck a landmark deal with MP Materials last summer that included an equity stake, price floor and long-term agreement to buy a specific amount of rare earth minerals and magnets.
The proposed deal with USA Rare Earth does not include a price floor or offtake agreement.
USA Rare Earth is planning to commission a magnet manufacturing facility in the first quarter of 2026 in Stillwater, Oklahoma and start commercial mining at a rare earth deposit called Round Top, in Sierra Blanca, Texas, in late 2028.
Lutnick asked during the November conversation what would it take for USA Rare Earth to go faster and widen its plans, Humpton said. An interagency meeting was then held with the company, she said.
“We went to work immediately,” the CEO said. “Actually, the Department of Commerce led an all-of-government effort. We had a really first-of-its-kind meeting at the Pentagon with both the Department of War, the Department of Energy and Commerce themselves.”
The Commerce Department’s Chips and Science Act team then “switched into high gear to make sure that we moved at warp speed to understand how to scale up this business and to see the transformative opportunity ahead of us,” Humpton said.
The U.S. is “taking an economic interest in the business, not a governance interest,” said Humpton, a Wake Forest math major. The Commerce Department has tied the deal to USA Rare Earth achieving key milestones.
USA Rare Earth first had to secure at least $500 million in funding from private sources. The company ended up surpassing that goal with $1.5 billion of private investment in public equity (PIPE) funding, Humpton said. The federal government will closely track USA Rare Earth’s progress on its business plan as it disburses the money in stages, she said.
“If we don’t progress with our business, then we won’t receive funding, but as we do progress, we’ll be supported by the American people to ensure we quickly build these assets that are needed for our economic security,” Humpton told CNBC.
Manufacturing challenges
But USA Rare Earth will face challenges in ramping up its manufacturing facility and building a mine. Round Top has been a target of investor speculation for decades but has never been developed into a commercial facility.
USA Rare Earth cautioned investors on Monday that there is a risk it may not be able to turn Round Top “into a producing mine.” The project “may be delayed, or may not result in the commercial extraction of minerals,” the company said in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Humpton, however, was confident during the interview in the eventual development of Round Top. She said the mineral extraction method has advanced, and USA Rare Earth’s team has progressed from simulation to bench testing to piloting, she said.
“We know that the chemistry works, and now we are building up our demonstration facility,” the CEO said. “So through the early part of this year, you’ll be able to see the results as we bring samples from the mountain and actually process them,” she said.