In a sign of how international automakers are attempting to forge relationships with the mining industry to secure raw materials for the introduction of electric vehicles, Tesla held discussions with Glencore about purchasing a stake in the Swiss commodities group.

According to two people with knowledge of the situation, preliminary talks about Elon Musk's electric vehicle and battery manufacturer purchasing 10–20 percent of Glencore started last year. As part of a roadshow for the mining company's annual results, Glencore CEO Gary Nagle visited Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, in March of this year.

The two people involved claim that no agreement was reached after the discussions ended. Tesla was hesitant to take a minority equity stake because it questioned whether Glencore's extensive coal mining operations were consistent with the automaker's environmental objectives.

Concerns about securing supplies of raw materials such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel that are required to make batteries have been raised by the rise of electric vehicles among automakers and battery manufacturers.

Glencore is the largest publicly traded trading company in the world and the largest producer of cobalt. Tesla signed an offtake agreement for cobalt with the Swiss company two years ago in order to supply its factories in Shanghai and Berlin.

In the past, Musk has described Tesla's intention to assume greater control over every stage of battery manufacturing, including processing the raw materials and even purchasing lithium deposits that are still in the ground, if the supply chain fails to deliver.

As the production of electric vehicles rises, automakers are searching the world for the raw materials they require, which has resulted in a flurry of offtake agreements — multiyear contracts to supply raw materials. With battery manufacturers SK Innovation and Samsung SDI as well as automakers BMW and GM, Glencore already has cobalt offtake agreements in place.