Michael Silver (CEO)


Michael Nathan Silver is a business executive, philanthropist, art collector, and commentator. He is the founder and CEO of American Elements, a global high-technology materials manufacturer. He helped establish the post-Cold War rare earth supply chain from China to the U.S. and Europe. His philanthropy includes sponsoring materials science and green technology conferences and educational television programs on high technology and contributing funding to the arts. He is a trustee of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and serves on the board of directors of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, CA. He writes and speaks on issues affecting the global high technology industry, science education and Sino-American relations.

Early life and education

Michael Silver was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He attended the University of Southern California receiving a B.A. degree in behavioral neuroscience in 1978 and then attended USC's JD/MBA dual degree program graduating in 1982. He practiced corporate law for 10 years, specializing in mergers & acquisitions.

Business career

In the mid-1990s Silver founded American Elements as a manufacturer and metals refiner of rare earths and other critical metals serving U.S. industry. Upon the closing of Unocal/Molycorp in Mountain Pass, California and the Rhodia rare earth refinery in Freeport, Texas, ending U.S. rare earths metal production, he established the post-Cold War rare earth supply chain from Inner Mongolia, China to the U.S., Europe and Japan. He then established American Elements facilities in Salt Lake City, Utah; Monterrey, Mexico; Baotou, China; and Manchester, England and expanded production to include newly discovered elemental forms of other advanced materials such as nanoparticles, green technology & alternative energy materials and advanced military alloys.

Philanthropic activities

Silver established the not-for-profit American Elements' Academics & Periodicals Department in 2006 which supports high school, college and graduate school education in high technology and materials science. The Department has sponsored academic and industry conferences in fields including space exploration, nanotechnology, green technologies, solar energy and robotics. In 2011, it co-sponsored with the National Science Foundation a four-part PBS TV series on NOVA entitled "Making Stuff" examining the world of materials science. Silver hosted a delegation in 2011 from the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California to the Inner Mongolian Medical Teaching College in Baotou, China which has led to student and teacher exchanges and the development of a joint AIDS program. He is a trustee of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the in Northern Kenya and the council of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He also serves on the council for the Getty Villa in Malibu and has underwritten artists in residence at the UCLA Hammer Museum. He has made in-kind donations of artwork to the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, DC.

Writing and speeches

Silver writes and speaks on several topics including:
In 2010, Silver coined the phrases "Innovation Distortion" to describe efforts to avoid the use of a given element solely because of concerns that it may be hoarded by nations with resource control of that material and "The Environmentalism Catch-22" to describe the dilemma faced by the environmental movement which both supports a green technology future reliant on solar energy, wind power, electric cars and fuel cells and concurrently opposes the mining of the critical metals from which these technologies are manufactured. In October 2014, Silver's editorial discussing these ideas was published in the Wall Street Journal.
Silver coined the phrase "Sovereign Monopolies" to describe nations that have a sufficient percent of the world's reserves of a given metal or mineral that they can dictate its cost and force industries requiring the metal to move production to their country to obtain preferential pricing.

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