"He spent all the company's money trying to get the 2,000TPA...

"He spent all the company's money trying to get the 2,000TPA plant working but failed, so had to shut it down. Just before letting the market know that was going to happen he made a desperate cash grab, convincing ATL to throw money at the company in exchange for shares, at a price of 14c per share (10x the price of today's low!)."

I also think they did the numbers and realized that even if the plant was running at capacity, prices at the time and collapsing (and lower today) would still put them in the red even with perfect execution. Many mistakes were made including the premature hiring of 100 employees which didn't help. Survival mode now and if/when lithium goes up in a new cycle, they will have to convince potential investors that they can make things work at a larger scale in spite of having the blemished record of the 2kt plant drama. In their defense, one just has to look at old ORE's ramp up or the current Kwinana hydroxide refinery woes to see this stuff is not easy. When ATL paid up, AGY was well into its plant issues, so they must have seen some potential (rather amazed they got that funding).

Anyhow, will wait and see. My biggest lesson here (and elsewhere) was a realization that I have to listen more carefully to the contrarian supply/demand data and pay attention to the longer-term price action trends rather than the narratives of the like of Benchmark and lithium 'experts' as you really didn't want to be holding in any lithium stocks when the market turns like this.