5 ms·

All of Elon Musk's businesses rely on government subsidies.

by stupidbird 8y ago

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
As do fossil fuels and lots of other things. What's your point?
imglorp 8y ago
I am totally okay with these kinds of subsidies, the ones that benefit society at large. There's plenty that aren't.
api 8y ago
Good. Name one major technological innovation that was not largely or wholly a product of government subsidies. The only ones I can think of were out of Bell Labs and Bell was a government backed monopoly so they don't really count. They were so profitable and protected they could spend like a government. Nothing new is ever profitable until you get past the early prototype and scaling stages. For big capital intensive stuff only government historically has pockets deep enough to burn enough money to get big stuff off the ground (sometimes literally). Rockets, jet engines, microprocessors, huge scale power grids, the Internet, genomics, supercomputing, nuclear power, solar power, the list goes on and on. Private investors just have too low a risk tolerance and too short a time horizon. I actually wish this weren't so, but it is so. It's also terribly hypocritical to bash Elon for taking government contracts when everyone does it. Why do you think Amazon's HQ2 is going to be in the DC area?
- stupidbird 8y ago
  how am I personally benefitting from Elon Musk being a billionaire, taxpayer dollars shouldn't be reaching his pockets at that volume (meanwhile he prevents his employees from unionizing and suppresses injury reports at the cost of employee health...)
  - fsloth 8y ago
    "how am I personally benefitting from Elon Musk being a billionaire, taxpayer dollars shouldn't be reaching his pockets at that volume" The whole point of subsidy is to encourage business in a specific area. It would sound like it's working as intended, encouraging business and all. Would you be happier if the subsidies were completely wasted on a non-viable business?
    - anonymfus 8y ago
      No, the obvious alternative is for government to invest these money directly into production and own the profits.
    - stupidbird 8y ago
      It's a business that exploits workers. We've seen this time and time again with Tesla.
  - brennankreiman 8y ago
    To be fair Musk was a billionaire before Tesla, and considering a company like fox Conn getting 3 billion or $230,000 a job to make a plant in Wisconsin, Tesla getting a subsidy is par for the course.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - api 8y ago
    Tesla proved the EV market and made EVs sexy and cool, which is helping tip EVs into the mass market. Without Tesla you wouldn't see BMW, Mercedes, VW, Nissan, etc. making mass market and luxury EVs. They'd be making no EVs at all or awful "compliance cars" designed to be undesirable. (The traditional auto industry is full of ICE heads and hates EVs. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming.) If EVs weren't tipping we'd still be talking about how peak oil (the depletion of easy/cheap oil) means the end of modern transportation. Tesla didn't make Musk a billionaire. The PayPal acquisition did that. Does Tesla even still get subsidies? They got that DOE loan years ago but they paid it back and lots of other auto makers got government loans back then too. Or are you referring to EV tax credits? In that case those are also subsidizing Nissan, BMW, GM, and any other company selling a mass market EV.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
Most major car manufacturers in the US received hundreds of millions of government money to not go bankrupt in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis; Tesla was not one of them.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  How is that relevant? Tesla was not and is not a major automaker. Their market cap may be large but they don't employ all that many people or ship all that many cars (so less people upstream are dependent on them) Tesla was founded in 2008. They would not have been eligible for loans the .gov gave to GM/Chrysler. That would have been like a small town bank asking to be bailed out along with the wall street banks.

All of Elon Musk's businesses rely on government subsidies.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

As do fossil fuels and lots of other things. What's your point?

imglorp 8y ago

I am totally okay with these kinds of subsidies, the ones that benefit society at large. There's plenty that aren't.

api 8y ago

Good. Name one major technological innovation that was not largely or wholly a product of government subsidies. The only ones I can think of were out of Bell Labs and Bell was a government backed monopoly so they don't really count. They were so profitable and protected they could spend like a government. Nothing new is ever profitable until you get past the early prototype and scaling stages. For big capital intensive stuff only government historically has pockets deep enough to burn enough money to get big stuff off the ground (sometimes literally). Rockets, jet engines, microprocessors, huge scale power grids, the Internet, genomics, supercomputing, nuclear power, solar power, the list goes on and on. Private investors just have too low a risk tolerance and too short a time horizon. I actually wish this weren't so, but it is so. It's also terribly hypocritical to bash Elon for taking government contracts when everyone does it. Why do you think Amazon's HQ2 is going to be in the DC area?

stupidbird 8y ago
how am I personally benefitting from Elon Musk being a billionaire, taxpayer dollars shouldn't be reaching his pockets at that volume (meanwhile he prevents his employees from unionizing and suppresses injury reports at the cost of employee health...)
- fsloth 8y ago
  "how am I personally benefitting from Elon Musk being a billionaire, taxpayer dollars shouldn't be reaching his pockets at that volume" The whole point of subsidy is to encourage business in a specific area. It would sound like it's working as intended, encouraging business and all. Would you be happier if the subsidies were completely wasted on a non-viable business?
  - anonymfus 8y ago
    No, the obvious alternative is for government to invest these money directly into production and own the profits.
  - stupidbird 8y ago
    It's a business that exploits workers. We've seen this time and time again with Tesla.
- brennankreiman 8y ago
  To be fair Musk was a billionaire before Tesla, and considering a company like fox Conn getting 3 billion or $230,000 a job to make a plant in Wisconsin, Tesla getting a subsidy is par for the course.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- api 8y ago
  Tesla proved the EV market and made EVs sexy and cool, which is helping tip EVs into the mass market. Without Tesla you wouldn't see BMW, Mercedes, VW, Nissan, etc. making mass market and luxury EVs. They'd be making no EVs at all or awful "compliance cars" designed to be undesirable. (The traditional auto industry is full of ICE heads and hates EVs. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming.) If EVs weren't tipping we'd still be talking about how peak oil (the depletion of easy/cheap oil) means the end of modern transportation. Tesla didn't make Musk a billionaire. The PayPal acquisition did that. Does Tesla even still get subsidies? They got that DOE loan years ago but they paid it back and lots of other auto makers got government loans back then too. Or are you referring to EV tax credits? In that case those are also subsidizing Nissan, BMW, GM, and any other company selling a mass market EV.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

Most major car manufacturers in the US received hundreds of millions of government money to not go bankrupt in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis; Tesla was not one of them.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
How is that relevant? Tesla was not and is not a major automaker. Their market cap may be large but they don't employ all that many people or ship all that many cars (so less people upstream are dependent on them) Tesla was founded in 2008. They would not have been eligible for loans the .gov gave to GM/Chrysler. That would have been like a small town bank asking to be bailed out along with the wall street banks.