Tesla Uses Company Guilty of Oil Price Manipulation, Bribery, and Corruption for EV Batteries

On May 24, Glencore, a commodity trading and mining firm, pled guilty to a decades-long bribery and corruption scheme stretching across Africa and South America.

Separately, Glencore also admitted to manipulating oil prices. In response, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr., stated, “Glencore Ltd. undermined public confidence by creating the false appearance of supply and demand to manipulate oil prices,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

To settle the charges, Glencore agreed to pay the U.S. government $1.1 billion in fines and forfeitures. The guilty pleas were part of a coordinated resolution with criminal and civil authorities in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and the United States.

Still, the judgment didn’t go far enough for the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR). It stated that the investigation and ruling stopped short of holding Glencore accountable for its most heinous crimes—Glencore stands accused of the worse human rights record among companies working in metals extraction for “green” technologies.

Protesters display a banner and posters in front of the venue of commodities trader Glencore’s annual shareholder meeting in Zug, Switzerland, on May 2, 2018. (Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters)

Acknowledging the abuses that might accompany mining, Tesla assured the public via its 2021 Impact Report that it goes above and beyond not to use companies engaged in shady business dealings.

“Mining has an important role to play in the transition to sustainable energy and we engage with suppliers to ensure mining is done in a responsible way. … Tesla joined the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) and uses the IRMA Standard as well as other internationally recognized responsible mining standards in our due diligence.”

In its 2019 Impact Report, Tesla publicly stated that “Tesla recognizes the higher risks of human rights issues within cobalt supply chains” and had put in place policies to “remove these risks from our