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> Either way, a far more interesting question, if (like me) you have no financial interest in the business’s success or failure, is: does it matter? I guess th
by mbesto 9y ago
> Either way, a far more interesting question, if (like me) you have no financial interest in the business’s success or failure, is: does it matter?
I guess the author has glanced over the billions of subsidies that come from taxpayers? [0] So ya, I think American taxpayers should care about Tesla's bankruptcy.
PS - The author of this article is the CTO of a company who's customer is, yup, you guessed it, Tesla. [1]
TC at it's finest folks.
[0] - http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-2015...
[1] - https://happyfuncorp.com/case_studies/hfc-labs-making-tesla-ownership-social https://happyfuncorp.com/case_studies/hfc-labs-making-tesla-...
- maratd 9y agoWhy are you conflating SpaceX and Tesla?
- rconti 9y agoI would have said "and SolarCity" but of course Tesla owns SolarCity now. It's really quite genius to build a really expensive solar roof tile when the tax breaks are for solar installations. Find a way to charge a premium price for a premium product (eg, a tile, not just a simple panel), get tax breaks for it all!
- toomuchtodo 9y agoHalf of what Tesla does is product engineering, the other half is financial engineering. Both are critical to their success on an accelerated time table.
- skybrian 9y agoThat's a sunk cost, though. It's not a financial interest in the company unless taxpayers could lose more money. (Or gain money.)
- devrand 9y agoI think you misunderstood your source [1]. He appears to be the CTO of a company that made a third-party app for Tesla owners, called TezLab. It does not appear to be affiliated with Tesla, and appears to have even rebranded at some point from "Teslab" to "TezLab". The closest relationship appears to be that the CTO owns a Tesla.
- mbesto 9y agoEither way - his company gains if Tesla succeeds no?
- dewski 9y agoTesla didn't contract them to make TesLab. > HFC co-founders Ben Schippers and Will Schenk are both Tesla owners and wanted to levelup their driving experience, pushing the limits of the data being collected to help solve typical ownership problems that Tesla itself had not yet addressed and add a bit of fun. Where is your source?
- fahayekwasright 9y agoAs a taxpayer, I support Tesla, am glad to have subsidized them, and I don’t care if they turn a profit.
- nkoren 9y agoI call bullshit on [0]. The government is buying goods and services from SpaceX. That's not subsidizing -- that's being a customer. It's particularly not subsidizing when the alternative suppliers of said goods and services are 3-7 times the price.
- mbesto 9y agoOk, here ya go: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4079749-nevada-demonstrates-tesla-depends-heavily-taxpayer-subsidies https://seekingalpha.com/article/4079749-nevada-demonstrates...
- greglindahl 9y agoNevada and SpaceX have nothing to do with each other.
- nkoren 9y agoIs goalpost-moving some kind of sport these days?
- chiaro 9y agoIt's very clear that Tesla benefits from excessive subsidies. They even had states compete on how many tax cuts and other benefits they could provide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1#State_competition_and_incentives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1#State_competitio... By even bringing up SpaceX you're trying to narrow the goalposts to something no one else is talking about.
- greglindahl 9y agoIt's the LA Times article that brought up SpaceX. Also, I'm part of "no one else".
- chiaro 9y agoYes, the "else" implies a singleton, not a null set.