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I am really curious how much Musk extracted from American taxpayers. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink everything is or was substituted by tax money. Without the Ukraine

I am really curious how much Musk extracted from American taxpayers. Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink everything is or was substituted by tax money. Without the Ukraine war and all the terminals and monthly payments from different governments Starlink would have no chance to break even so early.

tekla 3y ago
How dare a company bid and compete for Govt grants and contracts?
cbcivyxt 3y ago
[dead]
cft 3y ago
Probably one of the best uses of taxpayers money. Better than the wars. By the way, Fairchild Semiconductor, the first chip company, the predecessor of Intel was also supported by taxpayers money, because its largest orders came from the Apollo program and the military.
gruez 3y ago
Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be an underlying implication that "[extracting] money from American taxpayers" is somehow illegitimate or dishonorable. What's wrong with getting money from the government, as long as the goods/services were delivered as promised and there was no corruption involved? The government wanted to promote electric vehicles, and teslas are legitimately good cars. The government needed launch vehicles, and spacex was the best option. The government wanted to provide satellite internet to the Ukrainian military, and starlink was the best service.
- marcusverus 3y ago
  The idea that SpaceX (which actively fought against cost-plus accounting in favor of fixed-cost contracts and has greatly reduced the cost of launch services) is ‘extracting money from American taxpayers’ is laughable. SpaceX is the death knell of the old space industry, whose primary function was delivering recycled tech late and over budget. In the fullness of time it will save the government many tens of billions of dollars—-FAR more than it ekes out in profit from government business. Transferring a single launch from SLS to Starship, for example, could save the US taxpayer a billion dollars while giving SpaceX no more than 5% of that amount in profit.
  - zpeti 3y ago
    Don't bother with facts for the elon haters, they are emotionally invested in Elon being an evil billionaire right winger, who is only around because of government tax incentives. Oh and it's his employees that did all the work, he just had money... (why didn't SLS, arianespace and blue origin work then? oh and the N1 russian rocket) Never mind the hundreds of data points to the contrary, the media now hates Elon, and it's surprising just how effective they've been at turning many people against him.
    - timschmidt 3y ago
      It's really fascinating to see how the system reacts to agents of actual widespread change.
      - ipython 3y ago
        Or perhaps two things could be true at the same time; SpaceX saves the government money on launches and Elon is a crazy shitposter on “X”
        timschmidt 3y ago
        > Elon is a crazy shitposter on “X” Does anyone care beyond internet drama points? The man's efforts to engineer societal-level technological change toward sustainability seem to matter more in my estimation.
        ipython 3y ago
        Clearly Elon does otherwise he wouldn’t do it? To me it reeks of a certain lack of self awareness, respect for others and questionable decision making. You can be interesting and edgy without being a total asshole. I also question his actual interest in sustainability. How exactly does paying $40 billion for Twitter fit into that grand strategy? What about driving a wedge between large groups of people by promoting hate speech helps any positive societal level change? Even if he did, do I want to put that power in one rich man?
- shrimpx 3y ago
  The only way in which it’s an issue is Musk being a libertarian opposed to government spending. He has repeatedly spoken against spending. He strongly opposes the infrastructure bill. I haven’t checked but the infra bill has an EV section and I suspect Tesla will get infra money. Presumably he believes using taxpayer money to build his own companies is the good kind of capital allocation, but it’s facetious to speak against a thing when you can’t get enough of it for yourself.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gruez 3y ago
    >He has repeatedly spoken against spending. He strongly opposes the infrastructure bill. I haven’t checked but the infra bill has an EV section and I suspect Tesla will get infra money. 1. if this was reversed, wouldn't we expect to see headlines along the lines of "Musk spent millions on lobbying for spending bill that will bring in billions for his companies"? Seems like he's going to get flak either way 2. I don't see the contradiction between advocating against a given policy, but still taking full advantage of it when it passes. Suppose you're against a tax cut bill, but it passes anyways. Are you going to forgo the tax cut and give the extra money to the government?
    - shrimpx 3y ago
      If he was doing (1) that would preserve his integrity. Sure he’d get flack, but his position would be consistent. Maybe Tesla had to use the tax money for competitive reasons and under investor pressure, and Musk personally disagrees with the general system of government handouts. Ok I’ll buy that but I haven’t heard such a nuanced take from him.
      - AlchemistCamp 3y ago
        It’s an absurd complaint. An NBA coach may not like changes in rules around “traveling” in the past 20 years, but either they embrace the new rules and have their players take the extra step or they just lose to teams that do. Advocate for the rules you want, but play the game with the rules it actually has.
hindsightbias 3y ago
In ratio terms of economic ROI, any of these would be lightyears ahead of Lockheed, Boeing, Blue Origin, Iridium, GM, Ford or a thousand other corps feeding at the trough. BO has been given billions and hasn’t launched a rat fart.
0xy 3y ago
If a small business installs park benches for government, would you say they'd been "extracting money from the American taxpayer" with no evidence they're profiteering? Not every government vendor is fleecing them, and your outrage is better projected at consultants, weapons manufacturers and intelligence contractors all of whom scam the government out of trillions.
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
The entire US Navy is a massive subsidy for the petroleum industry and has been for a century. And here we are probably bitching about getting government contracts for space launches when SpaceX is the one that's dropping the fundamental economics of orbital lifting possibly by one to two decimal points. The United launch alliance gains far more benefits from aggressive government contracts and sponsorship than SpaceX does. Ask for the other common source about this complaint, the fact that Tesla gets some large amounts of sponsorship money from cafe gas efficiency credits it gets paid for by other companies, well that is regulation that is functioning as designed. I get that musk is stupid and says mean things, is arrogant, sexual harasses women, and still I would likely put 100 CEOs above him for bad people, and maybe 1000. It's just that you're typical. Horrible CEO has learned to STFU.
solardev 3y ago
Starlink took government money and made a global network of internet satellites. That's pretty fucking incredible. Meanwhile Xfinity took government money and did fuck all with it. Added some more fees, poisoned DNS, laughed all the way to the bank.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Money ended up being denied
mensetmanusman 3y ago
Starlink has been a 10-100x ROI for the government, it’s why they invest in things with ‘subsidies’.

tekla 3y ago

How dare a company bid and compete for Govt grants and contracts?

cbcivyxt 3y ago

[dead]

cft 3y ago

Probably one of the best uses of taxpayers money. Better than the wars. By the way, Fairchild Semiconductor, the first chip company, the predecessor of Intel was also supported by taxpayers money, because its largest orders came from the Apollo program and the military.

gruez 3y ago

Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be an underlying implication that "[extracting] money from American taxpayers" is somehow illegitimate or dishonorable. What's wrong with getting money from the government, as long as the goods/services were delivered as promised and there was no corruption involved? The government wanted to promote electric vehicles, and teslas are legitimately good cars. The government needed launch vehicles, and spacex was the best option. The government wanted to provide satellite internet to the Ukrainian military, and starlink was the best service.

marcusverus 3y ago
The idea that SpaceX (which actively fought against cost-plus accounting in favor of fixed-cost contracts and has greatly reduced the cost of launch services) is ‘extracting money from American taxpayers’ is laughable. SpaceX is the death knell of the old space industry, whose primary function was delivering recycled tech late and over budget. In the fullness of time it will save the government many tens of billions of dollars—-FAR more than it ekes out in profit from government business. Transferring a single launch from SLS to Starship, for example, could save the US taxpayer a billion dollars while giving SpaceX no more than 5% of that amount in profit.
- zpeti 3y ago
  Don't bother with facts for the elon haters, they are emotionally invested in Elon being an evil billionaire right winger, who is only around because of government tax incentives. Oh and it's his employees that did all the work, he just had money... (why didn't SLS, arianespace and blue origin work then? oh and the N1 russian rocket) Never mind the hundreds of data points to the contrary, the media now hates Elon, and it's surprising just how effective they've been at turning many people against him.
  - timschmidt 3y ago
    It's really fascinating to see how the system reacts to agents of actual widespread change.
    - ipython 3y ago
      Or perhaps two things could be true at the same time; SpaceX saves the government money on launches and Elon is a crazy shitposter on “X”
      - timschmidt 3y ago
        > Elon is a crazy shitposter on “X” Does anyone care beyond internet drama points? The man's efforts to engineer societal-level technological change toward sustainability seem to matter more in my estimation.
        ipython 3y ago
        Clearly Elon does otherwise he wouldn’t do it? To me it reeks of a certain lack of self awareness, respect for others and questionable decision making. You can be interesting and edgy without being a total asshole. I also question his actual interest in sustainability. How exactly does paying $40 billion for Twitter fit into that grand strategy? What about driving a wedge between large groups of people by promoting hate speech helps any positive societal level change? Even if he did, do I want to put that power in one rich man?
shrimpx 3y ago
The only way in which it’s an issue is Musk being a libertarian opposed to government spending. He has repeatedly spoken against spending. He strongly opposes the infrastructure bill. I haven’t checked but the infra bill has an EV section and I suspect Tesla will get infra money. Presumably he believes using taxpayer money to build his own companies is the good kind of capital allocation, but it’s facetious to speak against a thing when you can’t get enough of it for yourself.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gruez 3y ago
  >He has repeatedly spoken against spending. He strongly opposes the infrastructure bill. I haven’t checked but the infra bill has an EV section and I suspect Tesla will get infra money. 1. if this was reversed, wouldn't we expect to see headlines along the lines of "Musk spent millions on lobbying for spending bill that will bring in billions for his companies"? Seems like he's going to get flak either way 2. I don't see the contradiction between advocating against a given policy, but still taking full advantage of it when it passes. Suppose you're against a tax cut bill, but it passes anyways. Are you going to forgo the tax cut and give the extra money to the government?
  - shrimpx 3y ago
    If he was doing (1) that would preserve his integrity. Sure he’d get flack, but his position would be consistent. Maybe Tesla had to use the tax money for competitive reasons and under investor pressure, and Musk personally disagrees with the general system of government handouts. Ok I’ll buy that but I haven’t heard such a nuanced take from him.
    - AlchemistCamp 3y ago
      It’s an absurd complaint. An NBA coach may not like changes in rules around “traveling” in the past 20 years, but either they embrace the new rules and have their players take the extra step or they just lose to teams that do. Advocate for the rules you want, but play the game with the rules it actually has.

hindsightbias 3y ago

In ratio terms of economic ROI, any of these would be lightyears ahead of Lockheed, Boeing, Blue Origin, Iridium, GM, Ford or a thousand other corps feeding at the trough. BO has been given billions and hasn’t launched a rat fart.

0xy 3y ago

If a small business installs park benches for government, would you say they'd been "extracting money from the American taxpayer" with no evidence they're profiteering? Not every government vendor is fleecing them, and your outrage is better projected at consultants, weapons manufacturers and intelligence contractors all of whom scam the government out of trillions.

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

The entire US Navy is a massive subsidy for the petroleum industry and has been for a century. And here we are probably bitching about getting government contracts for space launches when SpaceX is the one that's dropping the fundamental economics of orbital lifting possibly by one to two decimal points. The United launch alliance gains far more benefits from aggressive government contracts and sponsorship than SpaceX does. Ask for the other common source about this complaint, the fact that Tesla gets some large amounts of sponsorship money from cafe gas efficiency credits it gets paid for by other companies, well that is regulation that is functioning as designed. I get that musk is stupid and says mean things, is arrogant, sexual harasses women, and still I would likely put 100 CEOs above him for bad people, and maybe 1000. It's just that you're typical. Horrible CEO has learned to STFU.

solardev 3y ago

Starlink took government money and made a global network of internet satellites. That's pretty fucking incredible. Meanwhile Xfinity took government money and did fuck all with it. Added some more fees, poisoned DNS, laughed all the way to the bank.

inemesitaffia 3y ago
Money ended up being denied

mensetmanusman 3y ago

Starlink has been a 10-100x ROI for the government, it’s why they invest in things with ‘subsidies’.