David Cole, CEO of Elemental Royalty Corporation | Rule Symposium 2026: Rick Rule interviews
Summary
Royalty generation buys prospective mineral ground, advances it with data, then sells projects while keeping a residual royalty — cheap discovery exposure.
Cole says the EMX Royalty and Elemental Altus merger created a billion-dollar company: 22 countries, 300-plus properties, analysts forecasting near $100 million royalty revenue.
Scale compounds in royalties — larger portfolios make each royalty more valuable through liquidity, diversification and discovery optionality, rewarding consolidation.
Cole argues Tether's arrival — now 32% of the stock — bridges stablecoin profits into gold and copper royalties and farmland.
Operators fund the drilling on royalty ground — over $100 million a year across 300 properties — so royalty holders get free-carried exposure.
Key points on Newmont
- David Cole says he spent about 18 and a half years at Newmont, where he "cut my teeth on the corporate side," before leaving to run exploration and royalty ventures.
- Cole recalls that while at Newmont he watched early royalty generators at work — including Lyle Campbell in Nevada — an experience that shaped his own royalty model.
Key points on Elemental Royalty
- CEO David Cole says Elemental Royalty emerged from the Elemental Altus–EMX Royalty merger with over $1 billion market cap, more than 200 royalties across 22 countries, and analysts forecasting close to $100 million in royalty revenue this year.
- Cole says counterparties spend over $100 million a year on exploratory drilling across more than 300 mineral property assets, so Elemental holds free-carried discovery exposure at no ongoing cost.
- Tether now owns 32% of Elemental's stock, per Cole, and Tether special-projects head Juan Sartori chairs the board.
- The model pairs royalty generation — buying prospective ground, adding data, selling projects while keeping royalties — with purchased assets that create cash flow at the top of Cole's 'pyramid.'
- Cole cites pre-merger EMX netting over $60 million from equity investments as capital raised without issuing shares, a merchant-banking prong Elemental will continue.
Rick Rule's takeaways
- Top takeaway Rick Rule argues David Cole's three-decade run from prospect generator to royalty platform makes his royalty-model views worth hearing — Rule has been a shareholder throughout.
- Rule says he was the largest shareholder of EMX and of Altus for years before being supplanted in the successor company by Tether.
- He presses that Elemental's exposure to other people's money — counterparty drilling and mine development spending — is "truly staggering."
- Rule credits Cole with personally answering thousands of emails from his clients and students over the years.
- He promotes the 2026 Rule Symposium in Boca Raton and its pre-conference interview program as preparation for allocating time and capital.