About
Turner Caldwell co-founded Mariana Minerals in 2024 to build a software-first, vertically integrated American minerals company spanning lithium, copper, nickel, and rare earths. Before Mariana he ran Tesla's metals and minerals team, where he deployed billions of dollars across the company's lithium and battery facilities and saw firsthand how dependent the U.S. industrial base remained on Chinese refining. Mariana now operates Lithium One in Texas with Select Water Solutions and has restarted a Utah copper mine as the world's only autonomous-first mine and refinery. The company has raised $120M+ from Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Khosla, and represents the most ambitious attempt yet to vertically reshore critical minerals.
Previous roles
- Head of Metals and Minerals, Tesla
Notable work
- Mariana Copper One autonomy-first copper mine and refinery in Utah
- Mariana Lithium One produced-water lithium facility in East Texas and western Louisiana
- MarianaOS platform comprising CapitalProjectOS, MineOS, and PlantOS
- PlantOS reinforcement-learning control across seven copper and lithium unit operations
- Tesla Gigafactory 1 and regional battery-materials production hub work
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