White Gold: Elon Musk and the Race for Argentina’s Lithium + Q&A

The screening will be followed by a Q&A, hosted by Global Witness, who produced the film.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump are big fans of Argentina’s populist President Javier Milei.

Trump and Milei have publicly praised each other, with the US President offering support to his Argentine counterpart, while Musk and “anarcho-capitalist” Milei initially wooed each other on social media, exchanging affectionate posts and sharing photos from their in-person meetings.

At the heart of this bromance lie Argentina’s large reserves of lithium, the mineral known as “white gold”.

Lithium is powering the world’s energy transition, and multinational mining firms are descending on Argentina’s remote salt flats to supply companies like Tesla.

But what about the people who have lived in the region for generations, who now fear that lithium mining is exhausting their water supply?

From South America’s Lithium Triangle to the halls of power in Washington, DC, from the Indigenous Peoples of Catamarca to Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Javier Milei, White Gold tracks the human impact of the green transition.

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Part of Planting Seeds Dominic Streeter, UK, 2025, 52m.