4 ms·

US government is adamant on making Elon rich and poor at the same time

delichon 3y ago
There are around 3 million federal employees. The number of different agendas is somewhat higher than that.
wand3r 3y ago
The government isn't a monolith. The Biden administration seems to have a particular disdain for him but presumably this sentiment isn't shared by all. Also, SpaceX can deliver payloads and operate missions that seemingly no other company can do, and likely at a price point that is untouchable. So it seems likely those in the government that needs these capabilities pay SpaceX and "make him rich" but im not sure what the alternative is? It's not like Boeing/ULA are some poor little company that is being unfairly ignored
hughesjj 3y ago
If you look around, basically every company Elon took over or started relies heavily on government handouts (or at least did during the primary r&d phase) Those handouts were intentional incentives to invent tech the government saw a need for. Regrettably for the government (and society), the guy who ended up taking advantage of those incentives the most ended up being a complete nitwit. So, we're kind of stuck with him until the government actually grows a pair and gives the SEC actual teeth, but too many nitwits are influential and would also be hurt by an SEC that does more than slap them on the wrist, so it's never going to happen /Rant /personal opionions
- snapplebobapple 3y ago
  Its more he is the guy who actually did it after taking the money. Look at rural broadband funding for a glaring example of the more common version of this where the government spends tens of billions and gets nothing.
- jdminhbg 3y ago
  > the guy who ended up taking advantage of those incentives the most ended up being a complete nitwit Wow, what terrible luck for that to keep happening!
  - philangist 3y ago
    This nitwit brought EVs to the mass market! And build a re-usable spaceflight platform that even the most powerful nation states can't rival! And helped found the world's leading AI lab! I pray to god to be a nitwit like that.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Yeah, complete and absolute moron. His only skill is running successful companies and dominating the competition. Now, if were as smart as someone like me, he would agree with my politics and sensibilities.
- elevatedastalt 3y ago
  The government didn't hand over that money for free, they paid it in return of goods / services (such as NASA launches). If you have a company that makes bridges and the government hires you to make a bridge is that also a handout?
  - justrealist 3y ago
    Yeah Tesla paid back their loans fully.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    You don't understand. The people that SpaceX beat out for launch contracts because they were too expensive were not grifters! Only the company that did better work for less is guilty of being a grifter. /s
    - AstralStorm 3y ago
      Until it started doing this Starship thing and literally blowing up money regularly.
      - boeingUH60 3y ago
        You mean rapidly experimenting and innovating to cut costs, unlike the competitors who don’t have the guts to do that and constantly rob the taxpayer blind?
      - jwells89 3y ago
        That isn’t really a problem so long as as it delivers a more capable product more quickly and cheaply than the old method of rockets remaining mostly paper for the better part of two decades.
      - ggreer 3y ago
        That's part of the reason for their success. They iterate rapidly and learn from their mistakes. SpaceX destroyed nine Falcon 9 boosters and one test booster (Grasshopper) before managing to land one. Now they have more successful consecutive booster landings than any other rocket family has had successful consecutive launches.
- justrealist 3y ago
  > Regrettably for the government (and society) It's not regrettable for the US that we have the world's leading rocket launch company and the largest EV company (outside China). It's actually pretty great for us.
- gruez 3y ago
  >Regrettably for the government (and society), the guy who ended up taking advantage of those incentives the most ended up being a complete nitwit. So, we're kind of stuck with him until the government actually grows a pair and gives the SEC actual teeth, but too many nitwits are influential and would also be hurt by an SEC that does more than slap them on the wrist, so it's never going to happen What do you what the SEC to do about spacex?
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  investments aren't handouts. the ROI for govt investment in spacex has been more than 10x which is a crazy number considering the amount vnc/hedge funds spend on trying to reach a fraction of those returns.
  - hx8 3y ago
    Pretty sure VCs are looking for closer to 100x than 10x. Additionally, this is survivorship bias. You can find lots of very risky investments that will pay 10x if they mature.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      >Additionally, this is survivorship bias. The applicability of survialship bias depends on if you are assessing government investment success in general, or SpaceX success. Time has shown that a few research contracts for spaceX were objectively a good bet. >You can find lots of very risky investments that will pay 10x if they mature. yes, but it is harder to find investments that do mature and pay 10X.
    - robocat 3y ago
      VC funds themselves are poor investments: "VC returns haven’t significantly outperformed the public market since the late 1990s, and, since 1997, less cash has been returned to investors than has been invested in VC". They want 100x returns from their one winning investment, but most VC funds fail to find their unicorn. Yes, selection bias, but also conflating funds with unicorns!
  - tomjakubowski 3y ago
    Measuring ROI on electric car tax rebates is not so straightforward
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Sure, same for solar. I dont think anyone even tried to make an economic ROI argument for either. There was a moral environmental argument for government establish the rebates, so presumably the government wants the purchases made and rebates claimed.
- thevillagechief 3y ago
  It looks to me like the government has gotten it's money's worth and then some from their transactions with his companies. Whatever his personal antics, I can't think of any instance his companies haven't delivered whatever the government has asked of them. Perhaps we should separate the services his companies provide from the man himself. If he stops delivering, the government can look elsewhere.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - hughesjj 3y ago
    Yup. I still think on the whole Elon has done more good than harm in the long term, but man is he trying hard to make it zero sum. I think the ideal for society would be for him to lose leadership over those companies and just disconnect from the internet/enjoy life, but I don't see him ever doing that
- adventured 3y ago
  > If you look around, basically every company Elon took over or started relies heavily on government handouts (or at least did during the primary r&d phase) Entirely false. That's just a cheap hit on Musk. His first company did not. X (which became part of PayPal of course) did not. Neuralink did not. His funding of OpenAI did not. So what are you going to say? You can start a successful rocket company that delivers a lot of payload to space, people to the Moon or Mars, and you plan to not involve the US Government / NASA? Ha! Sure. Please research what the launch sector looked like before SpaceX, what were the options? You're going to start or take over an energy company (SolarCity) and it's not going to cross paths with the government? Solar shouldn't be subsidized? Yeah ok. You're going to deploy utility scale energy storage (Tesla), and it's not going to involve dealing with governments? Hmmm. You're going to attempt the Boring Company, digging long stretches underground, and you're not going to involve the government. Right. You're going to take on a bunch of the largest companies on earth in terms of sales (car companies), including some of the most politically connected (GM, Ford; both of which have rather notorious histories of killing competition using politics), and you're not going to help your customers save money by making sure they qualify for EV subsidies? Un huh.
  - kiba 3y ago
    He could be doing all of that without making a fool and a general ass of himself, as opposed to being consistently a master class act. Whatever accomplishment you want to make in the world, it's no excuse to be an ass.
    - adventured 3y ago
      The issue isn't whether he's making an ass of himself, he certainly does that anytime he gets a platform to speak on regarding general topics. I think everybody knows he does that at this point. So what. Why should I care if Musk makes a fool of himself when trying to talk about anything outside his competency? Why would I become emotionally charged about such a meaningless topic? His detractors do, they can't control themselves. It's because they now view him as someone to fight with in the forever culture war; they previously viewed him overwhelmingly as an ally, prior to the Trump years. At issue is whether people can be rational enough to control their emotions and separate out Musk's obnoxious personality, the way he broadcasts it often, from the factual reality of his accomplishments. The need of his detractors to strip him of all accomplishment, is plainly pathetic. It's easy to recognize both good and bad in regards to the life of a person, without lying and pretending someone like Musk is just all bad/negatives (terrible person, zero accomplishments - that's the detractor position). They view him as a political and cultural opponent (to one degree or another). If you're their opponent, you must be entirely destroyed (not partially, entirely). Since we live in a culture of extremes in terms of politics / partisanship. Their opponents can have no good qualities, no positives, they're all nazis across the board. George W Bush garners a lot more sympathy/ respect from the same exact people than Musk does. The guy that launched a war with Iraq that got hundreds of thousands of people killed in the following civil war, he's more likable than Musk per their views. That's the insanity we're dealing with. Because Michelle Obama likes Bush, and Ellen Degeneres likes Bush, the Clintons built a rapport with the Bush family, so golly gee he can't be all bad, tee hee, it's so cute how he paints and stuff. The same people called Bush a nazi while he was in office. It's because he's no longer viewed as part of the culture war, they called off the attack.
- kiba 3y ago
  He can be both a nitwit and a genius.
- colechristensen 3y ago
  Eh, I think Elon is just more public about himself than other industrialists who, if you got to know them, would be equally as dislikable on average.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    I think the public would hate the vast majority of other humans, if behavior was transparent and they focused attention on the negative. Ghandi was a pedophile, MLK was a wifebeater, Mother Teresa was a homophobe, Jefferson was slave owner, ect.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

There are around 3 million federal employees. The number of different agendas is somewhat higher than that.

The government isn't a monolith. The Biden administration seems to have a particular disdain for him but presumably this sentiment isn't shared by all. Also, SpaceX can deliver payloads and operate missions that seemingly no other company can do, and likely at a price point that is untouchable. So it seems likely those in the government that needs these capabilities pay SpaceX and "make him rich" but im not sure what the alternative is? It's not like Boeing/ULA are some poor little company that is being unfairly ignored

hughesjj 3y ago

If you look around, basically every company Elon took over or started relies heavily on government handouts (or at least did during the primary r&d phase) Those handouts were intentional incentives to invent tech the government saw a need for. Regrettably for the government (and society), the guy who ended up taking advantage of those incentives the most ended up being a complete nitwit. So, we're kind of stuck with him until the government actually grows a pair and gives the SEC actual teeth, but too many nitwits are influential and would also be hurt by an SEC that does more than slap them on the wrist, so it's never going to happen /Rant /personal opionions

snapplebobapple 3y ago
Its more he is the guy who actually did it after taking the money. Look at rural broadband funding for a glaring example of the more common version of this where the government spends tens of billions and gets nothing.
jdminhbg 3y ago
> the guy who ended up taking advantage of those incentives the most ended up being a complete nitwit Wow, what terrible luck for that to keep happening!
- philangist 3y ago
  This nitwit brought EVs to the mass market! And build a re-usable spaceflight platform that even the most powerful nation states can't rival! And helped found the world's leading AI lab! I pray to god to be a nitwit like that.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  Yeah, complete and absolute moron. His only skill is running successful companies and dominating the competition. Now, if were as smart as someone like me, he would agree with my politics and sensibilities.
elevatedastalt 3y ago
The government didn't hand over that money for free, they paid it in return of goods / services (such as NASA launches). If you have a company that makes bridges and the government hires you to make a bridge is that also a handout?
- justrealist 3y ago
  Yeah Tesla paid back their loans fully.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  You don't understand. The people that SpaceX beat out for launch contracts because they were too expensive were not grifters! Only the company that did better work for less is guilty of being a grifter. /s
  - AstralStorm 3y ago
    Until it started doing this Starship thing and literally blowing up money regularly.
    - boeingUH60 3y ago
      You mean rapidly experimenting and innovating to cut costs, unlike the competitors who don’t have the guts to do that and constantly rob the taxpayer blind?
    - jwells89 3y ago
      That isn’t really a problem so long as as it delivers a more capable product more quickly and cheaply than the old method of rockets remaining mostly paper for the better part of two decades.
    - ggreer 3y ago
      That's part of the reason for their success. They iterate rapidly and learn from their mistakes. SpaceX destroyed nine Falcon 9 boosters and one test booster (Grasshopper) before managing to land one. Now they have more successful consecutive booster landings than any other rocket family has had successful consecutive launches.
justrealist 3y ago
> Regrettably for the government (and society) It's not regrettable for the US that we have the world's leading rocket launch company and the largest EV company (outside China). It's actually pretty great for us.
gruez 3y ago
>Regrettably for the government (and society), the guy who ended up taking advantage of those incentives the most ended up being a complete nitwit. So, we're kind of stuck with him until the government actually grows a pair and gives the SEC actual teeth, but too many nitwits are influential and would also be hurt by an SEC that does more than slap them on the wrist, so it's never going to happen What do you what the SEC to do about spacex?
mensetmanusman 3y ago
investments aren't handouts. the ROI for govt investment in spacex has been more than 10x which is a crazy number considering the amount vnc/hedge funds spend on trying to reach a fraction of those returns.
- hx8 3y ago
  Pretty sure VCs are looking for closer to 100x than 10x. Additionally, this is survivorship bias. You can find lots of very risky investments that will pay 10x if they mature.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    >Additionally, this is survivorship bias. The applicability of survialship bias depends on if you are assessing government investment success in general, or SpaceX success. Time has shown that a few research contracts for spaceX were objectively a good bet. >You can find lots of very risky investments that will pay 10x if they mature. yes, but it is harder to find investments that do mature and pay 10X.
  - robocat 3y ago
    VC funds themselves are poor investments: "VC returns haven’t significantly outperformed the public market since the late 1990s, and, since 1997, less cash has been returned to investors than has been invested in VC". They want 100x returns from their one winning investment, but most VC funds fail to find their unicorn. Yes, selection bias, but also conflating funds with unicorns!
- tomjakubowski 3y ago
  Measuring ROI on electric car tax rebates is not so straightforward
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Sure, same for solar. I dont think anyone even tried to make an economic ROI argument for either. There was a moral environmental argument for government establish the rebates, so presumably the government wants the purchases made and rebates claimed.
thevillagechief 3y ago
It looks to me like the government has gotten it's money's worth and then some from their transactions with his companies. Whatever his personal antics, I can't think of any instance his companies haven't delivered whatever the government has asked of them. Perhaps we should separate the services his companies provide from the man himself. If he stops delivering, the government can look elsewhere.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- hughesjj 3y ago
  Yup. I still think on the whole Elon has done more good than harm in the long term, but man is he trying hard to make it zero sum. I think the ideal for society would be for him to lose leadership over those companies and just disconnect from the internet/enjoy life, but I don't see him ever doing that
adventured 3y ago
> If you look around, basically every company Elon took over or started relies heavily on government handouts (or at least did during the primary r&d phase) Entirely false. That's just a cheap hit on Musk. His first company did not. X (which became part of PayPal of course) did not. Neuralink did not. His funding of OpenAI did not. So what are you going to say? You can start a successful rocket company that delivers a lot of payload to space, people to the Moon or Mars, and you plan to not involve the US Government / NASA? Ha! Sure. Please research what the launch sector looked like before SpaceX, what were the options? You're going to start or take over an energy company (SolarCity) and it's not going to cross paths with the government? Solar shouldn't be subsidized? Yeah ok. You're going to deploy utility scale energy storage (Tesla), and it's not going to involve dealing with governments? Hmmm. You're going to attempt the Boring Company, digging long stretches underground, and you're not going to involve the government. Right. You're going to take on a bunch of the largest companies on earth in terms of sales (car companies), including some of the most politically connected (GM, Ford; both of which have rather notorious histories of killing competition using politics), and you're not going to help your customers save money by making sure they qualify for EV subsidies? Un huh.
- kiba 3y ago
  He could be doing all of that without making a fool and a general ass of himself, as opposed to being consistently a master class act. Whatever accomplishment you want to make in the world, it's no excuse to be an ass.
  - adventured 3y ago
    The issue isn't whether he's making an ass of himself, he certainly does that anytime he gets a platform to speak on regarding general topics. I think everybody knows he does that at this point. So what. Why should I care if Musk makes a fool of himself when trying to talk about anything outside his competency? Why would I become emotionally charged about such a meaningless topic? His detractors do, they can't control themselves. It's because they now view him as someone to fight with in the forever culture war; they previously viewed him overwhelmingly as an ally, prior to the Trump years. At issue is whether people can be rational enough to control their emotions and separate out Musk's obnoxious personality, the way he broadcasts it often, from the factual reality of his accomplishments. The need of his detractors to strip him of all accomplishment, is plainly pathetic. It's easy to recognize both good and bad in regards to the life of a person, without lying and pretending someone like Musk is just all bad/negatives (terrible person, zero accomplishments - that's the detractor position). They view him as a political and cultural opponent (to one degree or another). If you're their opponent, you must be entirely destroyed (not partially, entirely). Since we live in a culture of extremes in terms of politics / partisanship. Their opponents can have no good qualities, no positives, they're all nazis across the board. George W Bush garners a lot more sympathy/ respect from the same exact people than Musk does. The guy that launched a war with Iraq that got hundreds of thousands of people killed in the following civil war, he's more likable than Musk per their views. That's the insanity we're dealing with. Because Michelle Obama likes Bush, and Ellen Degeneres likes Bush, the Clintons built a rapport with the Bush family, so golly gee he can't be all bad, tee hee, it's so cute how he paints and stuff. The same people called Bush a nazi while he was in office. It's because he's no longer viewed as part of the culture war, they called off the attack.
kiba 3y ago
He can be both a nitwit and a genius.
colechristensen 3y ago
Eh, I think Elon is just more public about himself than other industrialists who, if you got to know them, would be equally as dislikable on average.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  I think the public would hate the vast majority of other humans, if behavior was transparent and they focused attention on the negative. Ghandi was a pedophile, MLK was a wifebeater, Mother Teresa was a homophobe, Jefferson was slave owner, ect.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]