> his business MO is heavily reliant on government contracts and special treatment He sells rockets to the government at 10% of what it would cost the governme

> his business MO is heavily reliant on government contracts and special treatment He sells rockets to the government at 10% of what it would cost the government to buy them elsewhere. It's clearly Musk helping the government. Besides, Musk did not get subsidies for SpaceX nor special treatment. > Are you claiming that subsidies don't get factored into a business plan? No, I claimed that Musk had no control over the EV subsidy, which was given to buyers of electric cars from any company. > acknowledge his success is tightly coupled to governmental help Making a better, cheaper rocket is helping the government save tens of billions of dollars. > contradictory to free-market ideals The government keeps taking our economy farther and farther from the free market. Government taxes, subsidizes, and regulates. It isn't really possible to run a free market business in the US. I know it's cool these days to dump on Musk and denigrate his achievements with "you didn't build that" (as if anyone else could have done it), but history will show him to be the greatest entrepreneuer the world has ever seen. The government has subsidized other companies. None of them succeeded like Musk did. Not remotely. The idea that the government created Musk is just nonsense.