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So the government wanted the services and was willing to take some risk paying in advance that SpaceX couldn’t deliver? Smart and successful bet in this case, b
by nickpp 3y ago
So the government wanted the services and was willing to take some risk paying in advance that SpaceX couldn’t deliver? Smart and successful bet in this case, but I guess they tried that with other companies as well and those didn’t deliver?!
- georgeg23 3y agoAgree, the point is that the story of Elon taking personal financial risk with SpaceX is false. For Tesla, besides the huge DOE grant, he had SpaceX loan some of the excess government money to Tesla in the first few years to derisk his investment there as well.
- nickpp 3y agoWell putting half your fortune in a venture is literally taking significant personal financial risk. Besides that, there are plenty of firms taking government money but Elon actually delivered.
- georgeg23 3y agoIt was a risk free venture.
- nickpp 3y agoThat is simply false. SpaceX's chances were widely estimated to be quite low at the time.
- georgeg23 3y agoIf you are following along above, even if SpaceX failed, only the government would have lost money spent. The government contract did not take equity so Elon could liquidate and get all his money back. His cash investment was very little compare to government up front money provided by Griffin.
- nickpp 3y agoIf SpaceX failed all the money in the company would've been gone.
- georgeg23 3y agoThey had no debt, and plenty of assets funded by the government. Other failed rocket companies liquidated and return value to investors. Elon only had to recover 10% of the spend to be made fully whole. Read the links above, this is not speculation.
- nickpp 3y agoThis is pure baseless speculation.