Slashdot Mirror
How Elon Musk's Growing Empire is Fueled By Government Subsidies
theodp writes: By the Los Angeles Times' reckoning, Elon Musk's Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support. The figure compiled by The Times, explains reporter Jerry Hirsch, comprises a variety of government incentives, including grants, tax breaks, factory construction, discounted loans and environmental credits that Tesla can sell. It also includes tax credits and rebates to buyers of solar panels and electric cars. "He definitely goes where there is government money," said an equity research analyst. "Musk and his companies' investors enjoy most of the financial upside of the government support, while taxpayers shoulder the cost," Hirsch adds. "The payoff for the public would come in the form of major pollution reductions, but only if solar panels and electric cars break through as viable mass-market products. For now, both remain niche products for mostly well-heeled customers." And as Musk moves into a new industry — battery-based home energy storage — Hirsch notes Tesla has already secured a commitment of $126 million in California subsidies to companies developing energy storage technology.
Employing mainly Americans, manufacturing in America.
"Because that's where the money is."
Duh....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
They forgot the benefit that it gets us out of the Middle East. That sandtrap is a massive waste of resources that I hate is being subsidized.
I can think of no more capable force of dissolving the DMV before the medium.com predicted end of intelligent life!!!
So we have a brilliant industrialist creating new pathways that we will all benefit from. In this case I hope the government gives him even more money. We need these technologies and a support system to actually conquer some of the issues that now confront us.
A grant, yes, but not a tax break. Just because you are getting fucked by taxes doesn't mean the other guy who isn't is being subsidized.
Big companies get subsidies in the form of tax breaks all the time.
They bitch about taxes, get a deal, then they bitch because the schools aren't churning out worker robots with the necessary skills- schools that would be funded by the taxes the big corps aren't paying.
Nobody has ever used the battery swap station, but Tesla has been collecting credits they've been selling to other automakers. That's how they've been staying afloat: getting credits for something they've never demonstrated to the public. Driving a car behind a curtain and claiming that a battery has been swapped is not the same as a demonstration. That's the kind of dog and bullshit show that you pull out when your demonstration isn't ready.
They only actually have to manage the swap in five minutes to qualify for the credits, not 90 seconds. But there are a crapload of connectors and there's rumored to be adhesives involved, at least on early cars. But we haven't seen swap one yet.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Governments should support future growth business. It promotes the economy and improves mankind. If Musk is taking advantage of that and taking on the risk of being the first; that to me sounds like good business. Good for Musk, good for the globe.
do the exact same thing when conservatives favored companies do this. ... unless you are looking at it solely with political partisan hatred
Not a big deal
And I'm sure the railroad barons felt the same way.
Is sourceforge really an adware source?
We want him to succeed. That's why those incentives exist.
If you want to complain about government largess to corporate America, there is no shortage of other, far more dubious, targets...
... manufacturing in America.
OK, I bet there is an image of a crowd of thousands of men with their lunch pails all walking into their shift at the plant who then jump on the line and build cars.
No.
At best it's a couple of dozen people working in the back office and some techs to walk around and monitor the automated plant. So, this guy is getting all this government money, hiring only a few hundred people, and the we the tax payer are in the hole. Does anyone really think that the piddly amount of jobs provided compensates for all those billions and billions in tax breaks?
And it's the same with traditional car plants. Here in Georgia, Mercedes got this very sweet one sided deal at our expense. MY tax dollars are subsidizing the rich executives at Mercedes.
We the taxpayer are getting screwed. We actually have government taking money out of the little people's pockets and putting into the billionaire's pockets. Musk is doing the same and has done nothing to earn it. This worship of him is just pathetic and idiotic and shows the mindless groupthink of Silicon Valley and how they have decayed to idiocy.
So, spin it all you want and be a sycophant, but the truth remains that the plutocrats are screwing us and blaming us for our economic troubles. They lie and say we can work harder and be successful. They ship jobs overseas or hire H1-bs and lie and say Americans do not have the skills. And we have the deluded who go along thinking that they too can join their ranks by playing along.
If the people pass laws to promote businesses investing in developing new capabilities (e.g. space flight) then we WANT companies to do that work and thus get those grants, tax breaks, etc. That's how the airline industry got launched in the US, for example - huge government subsidies (airports, air traffic control system) and contracts (for mail delivery) that jump started the US airline industry, which was IMO a brilliant investment, because transportation doesn't just benefit the company providing transportation, it benefits everyone who uses transportation. Highways were another brilliant investment, funding construction companies and thus jobs, and creating a national road system that everyone benefits from.
The subsidies/grants/tax breaks that I object to are the ones that go to mature, profitable industries that don't need any support because they should be able to survive on their own. Oil companies and sports teams are just the most blatant examples. Agri-business corporations don't need subsidies, either - the farming grants should be reserved for the few percent of farmers who are independent, small family farms, and right now the money all goes to huge, profitable corporations that have huge resources and don't need the money, and relatively little to the small farms that need the support to survive the ups-and-downs of farming.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
The oil industry periodically requires wars to secure its supplies, and a lot of its profits accrue to countries with interests inimical to those of the U.S. To give you an idea, Operation Desert Storm cost $104 billion in nominal 2014 dollars. From a strictly cost/benefit perspective, the U.S. is underfunding these companies.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
Loans that were fully paid back (e.g. the one Tesla got). Space launches for the government that are *cheaper* than the other launch services the government is using. You can't call it a subsidy when they are selling the government a service.
Most of the other clean tax subsidies are given to the clients (e.g. SolarCity, Tesla) not to Musk's companies directly. If they are that rich, as the author claims they are, I think they would still buy the cars to make a kind of fashion statement even if there was no tax break at all.
As for the tax breaks he gets for building that factory its no different from what any other company doing a similar activity would get. Yes I know its crap but its the world goes.
Rather spending that type of money on the bazillions pointless DOD contract where it doens't trickle down but simply trickles away, it goes to a guy and his various crews that actually get shit done. And manufactures mostly domestically. I don't see a problem here.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Those tax breaks and subsidies were set up to encourage advancement in those areas by offering an economic incentive. Musk just did exactly what the government was handing out money for people to do... advance those areas.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
In at least one way or another, the vast majority of private companies pushing ground-breaking technologies have relied on a higher than typical level of government support because, sorry, the free market just can't solve these sorts of hard problems on its own. This is how things are *supposed* to work--let both government and private enterprise play their role. Musk is always really transparent about this.
However perhaps one good thing about articles like this is that they should quiet down the libertarian types that are trying to co-opt Musk's successes as some sort of shining example of their ideology.
... who of course spurn all governement subsidies and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Yeah. Right.
In a 2008 blog post, Musk laid out a plan: After the sports car, Tesla would produce a sedan costing "half the $89k price point of the Tesla Roadster and the third model will be even more affordable."
In fact, the second model now typically sells for $100,000, and the much-delayed third model, the Model X sport utility, is expected to sell for a similar price. Timing on a less expensive model — maybe $35,000 or $40,000, after subsidies — remains uncertain.
The Roaster cost more than $89k. That was the value without subsidies. The article is comparing the price of the cheapest model of the Roaster (with subsidies) to the price of the most expensive Model S (without subsidies). Well DUH.
The Model X isn't the third model Musk was talking about. The third model SEDAN is supposedly to be called the Model 3 and unlike what the author said it's planned to be launch in 2017. YMMW. They need the battery factory to be finished so they'll have batteries cheap enough for the Model 3.
Taking from the unrich to give to the rich. Well done, dude.
SourceForge, the code repository site owned by Slashdot Media, has apparently seized control of the account hosting GIMP for Windows on the service, according to e-mails and discussions amongst members of the GIMP community—locking out GIMP's lead Windows developer. And now anyone downloading the Windows version of the open source image editing tool from SourceForge gets the software wrapped in an installer replete with advertisements.
Link to original source
The GIMP developers aren't happy at all about this. They say that Sourceforge impersonated the GIMP developers, and abused the trademarks owned by the GNOME foundation
Elon Musk poored in 180 million until he couldn't afford his appartment to
start things up. He got NO subsidies in the beginnning, and only marginal
ones later on which he payed back way before it was needed.
Besides that many of the tax breaks for EV where there explicitly for him to use.
He wants to go as fast as possible, and just start looking at the help the car
industry has had for decades now! Billions for nothing!
This is the second open attack on him in three weeks, the earlier was about
him being harsh to an employee. all in all, who cares, he inspres people.
How large were the bail outs to failures such as LTCM and recently to the all banks and car companies after the last financial crash?
Tritium
Compared to the shenanigans of the coal and oil businesses, even if it is true, this 5 billion is nothing. But most likely it is a hit piece commissioned by the same people who brought you the Iraq war. That one was expansion attempt. Now they are defending the home turf, public utilities using gas and coal. Entrenched monopolies who have never faced competition, lightly regulated by revolving door politicians, lobbyists and company men.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
fuck your crack whore mother
So, it turns out that John Galt is kind of a moocher.
Who could have guessed?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'd bet the useful public return on public funds spent for the money he takes is much better than most everything else Washington spends.
On the contrary - SolarCity retains the tax breaks and the subsidies. They even counsel against the "buy it outright" option because "you'll need an accountant specializing in energy credits and taxes". (Read "our business model is based on being an unregulated utility and utterly depends on monthly cashflow from leases".)
Too many fanboi's here in the comments and moderation to get a legitimate debate going about a single person being enriched at the tax payers expense. And so goes slashdot... I need to find a new place for "stuff that matters" that has legitimate debate.
so the early auto producers managed to get the US to redo all of it's roads.
Early auto producers exploited the decades of lobbying already done by cyclists.
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
Carlton Reid
19th century cyclists paved the way for modern motorists' roads
Car drivers assume the roads were built for them, but it was cyclists who first lobbied for flat roads more than 100 years ago
Wooden hobbyhorses evolved into velocipedes; velocipedes evolved into safety bicycles; safety bicycles evolved into automobiles.
It's well known that the automotive industry grew from seeds planted in the fertile soil that was the late 19th century bicycle market. And to many motorists it's back in the 19th century that bicycles belong. Cars are deemed to be modern; bicycles are Victorian.
Many motorists also assume that roads were built for them. In fact, cars are the johnny-come-latelies of highways.
The hard, flat road surfaces we take for granted are relatively new. Asphalt surfaces weren't widespread until the 1930s. So, are motorists to thank for this smoothness?
No. The improvement of roads was first lobbied for - and paid for - by cycling organisations.
In the UK and the US, cyclists lobbied for better road surfaces for a full 30 years before motoring organisations did the same. Cyclists were ahead of their time.
When railways took off from the 1840s, the coaching trade died, leaving roads almost unused and in poor condition. Cyclists were the first vehicle operators in a generation to go on long journeys, town to town. Cyclists helped save many roads from being grubbed up.
Roads in towns were sometimes well surfaced. Poor areas were cobbled; upmarket areas were covered in granite setts (what many localities call cobbles). Pretty much every other road was left unsurfaced and would be the colour of the local stone. Many 19th century authors waxed lyrical about the varied and beautiful colours of British roads.
Cyclists' organisations, such as Cyclists' Touring Club in the UK and League of American Wheelmen (LAW) in the US, lobbied county surveyors and politicians to build better roads. The US Good Roads movement, set up by LAW, was highly influential. LAW once had the then US president turn up at its annual general meeting.
The CTC individual in charge of the UK version of the Good Roads movement, William Rees Jeffreys, organised asphalt trials before cars became common. He took the reins of the Roads Improvement Association (RIA) in 1890, while working for the CTC.
He later became an arch motorist and the RIA morphed into a motoring organisation. Rees Jeffreys called for motorways in Britain 50 years prior to their introduction. But he never forgot his roots. In a 1949 book, Rees Jeffreys - described by former prime minister David Lloyd George as "the greatest authority on roads in the United Kingdom and one of the greatest in the whole world" â" wrote that cyclists paved the way, as it were, for motorists. Without the efforts of cyclists, he said, motorists would not have had as many roads to drive on. Lots of other authors in the early days of motoring said the same but this debt owed to cyclists by motorists is long forgotten.
The CTC created the RIA in 1885 and, in 1886, organised the first ever Roads Conference in Britain. With patronage - and cash - from aristocrats and royals, the CTC published influential pamphlets on road design and how to create better road surfaces. In some areas, county surveyors took this on board (some were CTC members) and started to improve their local roads.
Even though it was started and paid for by cyclists, the RIA stressed from its foundation that it was lobbying for better roads to be used by all, not just cyclists.
However, in 1896 everything changed. Motoring big-wigs lobbied for the Locomotives Amendment Act to be repeal
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
... is that there's so many to choose from. Noam Chomsky even makes a pretty plausivle case that big business in US depends on the government $$$ since, like, forever. Without comparing subsidies and their spread over various industries, this article ranges from stating the obvious to a hit piece .
There is no issue here. Businesses enjoy benefits written into the law or lobby for them if possible. Taking money from party A and giving some of it to party B is what government subsidies do. Unless you think that governments shouldn't intervene then you should be all suportive because in this case looks like the right guy got the money.
Subsidies are policy implementation devices. When people take the subsidies under the condition the subsidies are offered the result is that something the government wants to happen happens. Theoretically its an inexpensive way to get things done without the government doing it and assuring private investment in the outcome. (so there's vested interest in successes and usually commercialization).
Just because one guy happens to feed at the trough isn't a problem neccessarily. It could be. But that's why you have oversight.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Another way to descript this would be:
Elon Musk structures his businesses to support government priorities.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
And this is a problem how? Don't those subsidies exist precisely to encourage the development of these sorts of technologies? The government (and theoretically, by extension: the people) decided that to encourage the development of greener technologies and/or space technologies, they would provide various bits of assistance to companies, as well as consumers buying into said technologies. Musk appears to be successful in developing these technologies. Now people are complaining that he got government subsidies? Bah. We, the people get the benefit of these new emerging technologies, and Musk gets to make some money doing it so that these emerging technologies exist. Win-win scenario. The subsidies will go away at some point as the technologies become more mainstream.
Its a sad fact that most businesses receive "subsidies" (IE less taxes) for behavior desired by the government, the larger the business the more "subsidies" they can usually take advantage of. Take this how you will, but its less an issue of those who are actually utilizing their rights under the law and more about a government that employs such a convoluted tax law to begin with.
Under a Republican administrator, Elon Musk will find himself under indictment and his corporate empire will crumble.
This article is laying the groundwork for that.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
So all of Elon's companies get $5b in subsidies? The oil industry in the US get $37.5 billion in subsidies a year, including $21 billion for production and exploration. That's a far worse proposition for this country.
----- obSig
unfettered capitalism is all about?
So many ppl are polarized about him. They either hate him because he is successful, or they love him because he is innovative. Look at how fast these postings have jumped.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Anyone who takes government subsidies is on welfare - like Musk.
If you cannot make money without government subsidies, then you have no business being in business.
This is an example of government stealing money from the middle class and giving it to the billionaires.
Even with the job "creation" paid for by the taxpayer, Musk gets the profits and added wealth.
These are subsidies that gov offers. He has not stolen anything.
In addition, Kock broths get more than that EACH YEAR. Do you think that the neo-cons are going after them? And no, the tea-party will not be going after Musk OR kock brothers. As such, the GOP will be split on this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
At least Musk is doing something semi-important. We can start hating him when he replaces workeers with H1-B visa workers.
fuck your crack whore mother
A truly brilliant riposte. The wit astounds!
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Who's that?
It's no different than what the other car companies are doing. They get tax breaks and investments from various levels of governments to build factories, retool a line, or even just keep a shift. I think that the money would be better invested in giving the employees training and loans for starting their own companies instead of giving the money to the Big 3 auto makers.
But I think the biggest offenders are the sports teams that threaten to leave to another city unless they get a new stadium or arena built for them. I say let them leave. Spend the money on programs that will help people that are starving instead of a game.
People who benefit from solar panel rebates are contractors who charge outrageous rates for installation.
The end user would always pay what is economically reasonable. If there were no government rebates, this economically reasonable amount would still be the same, it would only be split differently between the panel producer (probably about the same as before) and the installer (who would get less money).
More than that, let's bring up just how much oil and gas has received over the past 50 years. This is a laughable critique!_
Loans that Musk's business would not get if he had to raise them on the capital markets, and probably at cheaper rates, aren't subsidies? What happened to the Ayn Randian 'bootstrap yourself' ideal of Slashdot? Or are subsidies bad only when they are paid to people you don't like? How about Tesla Motors, which is mostly kept afloat by the zero emissions 'battery replacement by invite' scam? There used to be a bit of critical thinking on Slashdot, but that was a long time ago.
The parasitic rent-seekers are being shown up by his companies actually being productive, and are throwing a hissy-fit. That seems to be the most likely explanation for why the recent wave of bile has started coming out of the MSM.
Government exists by confiscating money earned by others. This is supposed to be "for the public good," or so we are led to believe. And government taxes to exert public policy objectives. For example, it taxes tobacco and liquor because "they're bad" and gives tax "breaks" in the form of deductions for home owner interest because "owning a house is good." Pick your own examples. Insofar as taxes work, such as when government uses taxes to build roads, it's not an unreasonable system. But that part of government is relatively rare. Most of the time government confiscates our money to give to someone else government has decided is more deserving or needs it more. And the one thing government itself needs more is money for itself because government always has another "program" that needs funding, including its own bureaucracy.
Basically government is a huge confiscation scheme designed to bleed as much wealth from its citizens as it can without killing them and thus stopping the flow of wealth from private hands where it is created into public hands which, more often than not, wastes it on dubious programs.
The interesting part is the way the public perceives all this and gets upset when it is discovered that government is stealing less money from one part than another. Rather than say, "That's a good start" we say, "That's not fair!" meaning we think the government should be confiscating more from companies such as Musk's, which are doing well, and (just a minor point) promoting those policies and technologies the government wants promoted.
So where is the collective outrage over the billions spent by this administration on "shovel ready" jobs that provided a few dozen? Where is the outrage when the government subsidized a "solar business" to much hoopla and coverage only to see them go bankrupt a few months later because, of all things, cost of production exceeded revenue? (Government is such an astute student of proper business practices, after all.)
But when Musk shows how to run a business properly the media gets all upset and says the public is shouldering all the costs. Not really. It's just a matter of disparate confiscation assuming government ought to steal the same amount (or percentage, or whatever) from everyone.
I, for one, am quite happy to "bear this burden" for something that hopes to increase my own independence and wealth in contrast to government taking a trillion dollars a year from us only to redistribute down a rat hole that doesn't work anyway.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
You say out of one side of your mouth that you want all this environmental stuff... this space program... the batteries... US manufacturing... etc.
And then when someone actually does it, you bitch about the government subsidies.
This forgets that the Chinese heavily subsidize their own industry and that most of what Musk is doing is semi experimental and environmental jazz.
So... leave him alone. Do you honestly think the US federal government is going to spend that money on something else that is better?
Get real.
They lost 46 billion on the US postal service from 2007. What exactly did that accomplish? This is the 21st century. We don't need a DAILY postal service that is subsidized by the US tax payer.
First, you could reduce deliveries to one a week. Tell me why you need more deliveries to your house than once a week? If you need to get your mail faster, than get your fat ass over to the postal office and pick up your mail. The vast majority of what people get in the mail is bills that are on billpay anyway and fucking junk mail. There is very little else in it.
Second, for those that want daily service or even more frequent service than that... have them pay a fee for that. Fed Ex and UPS will check your place of business every day if you pay them for it.
Third, encourage the postal service to start using a digitization service. That is, when mail is scanned in at location X, have it flag certain recipients as preferring a digital service. Mail thus flagged, is digitized on reception by the postal service and uploaded to a cloud database where it can be accessed without further shipping or delivery. Here someone will say "but what if there is something in a letter that you don't want the post man to look at... then don't sign up for this service. Or have something people can write on an envelope that exempts it.
The point is that we do a lot of things that waste money. If you ACTUALLY care about saving money... then there is a great deal we can look at. The Last thing I'd fuck with is ruining Musk's empire. That is good for America. Not bad.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The article almost (?) seemed to imply that Elon targets industries where he can get government money. This seems to be a classic confusion of correlation VS causation. The reason he is in these industries is that he is a big thinker who is drawn to what he views are the most important problems that face humanity. And yes, those are also industries where, not surprisingly, there are subsidies.
I was on vacation this past week and at the hotel, they got great reception of Fox News. Just a preamble so you can ignore the rest of this :P
Anyways, there was a pretty good debate there on college tuition with some of panel saying it is a free market because it is based on supply and demand and another panel member saying it can't be a free market because of the subsidies. The cost would not be as high if there were no subsidies because the payout of the college degree is not that high for everyone...
Anyways, it got me thinking of where we are. In pretty much every industry today, you don't have anything that resembles a 'free market'. But you do have a lot of 'markets'.
Almost everywhere you look, you see heavy government involvement from direct subsidies, to investments, to laws, to regulations... that heavily distort any notion of a free market.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong, I'm simply saying what it is.
But then what surprises me is the outrage people get when it comes to subsidies to industries that make things.
I see this all the time. Even in Canada. Suddenly we turn all free-market when it comes to industries that make things. Oh god forbid Nortel or BlackBerry get direct subsidies. These engineers have to operate in the global free market. Meanwhile probably something like 70% of GDP is subsidy based (real estate, healthcare, education, finance...)
Alright, let's take it all at face value. Musk's companies have 5 billion dollars in subsidies. Seems like he is delivering with real jobs and real products.
Meanwhile, hundreds of billions and trillions are spent every year subsidizing the military, healthcare, education, real estate, finance, public sector...
I don't care which side of the fence you stand on. Free market or socialism, why complain about Musk? You want to complain about socialism, let's talk healthcare and education and military and finance and real estate first. That's the big money in socialism.
...is that funding promising but currently expensive technology that can have big payoffs in the future for society is far different than corn or oil subsidies.
Or military subsidies.
Inflammatory article is inflammatory.
--
BMO
P.S. I was going to use "nascent" as the word up there but didn't like it so I used a thesaurus. Pubescent is a synonym. That would have made the sentence far more interesting.
You all supported creating these idiotic subsidy programs to encourage businesses to do certain behaviors. Then you act shocked that certain businesses do certain behaviors in order to take advantage of the subsidies? And have some underlying tone implying there is something nefarious about this? #REF!
November 2016 will be the beginning of the end for Tesla and Musk. Better be out of all Tesla stock holding by January 2017.
Picking on Musk when in fact government being involevd deeply in business, R&D and particularly areas like space and solar is the real problem. This is bunk. Elon Musk is one of the greatest engineering and business heroes of our age. To ignore the context is vastly unjust.
you honestly think SpaceX costs more than Lockheed Martin and Boeing to run?
Without money funneled to Musk by Obama, Musk's "Ironman" Industries will look like Humpty Dumpty on the sidewalk. Likely Musk will start moving cash out of his companies banks starting in July in small amounts to avoid IRS detection. In late October 2016 Musk will relinquish the USA side of his dual citizenship and become Icelander Musk to avoid IRS taxation altogether.
Ha ha What a carpet bagger this Musk.
"solar panels and electric cars . . . . remain niche products for mostly well-heeled customers." I'd agree that might be accurate for Musk's cars, but for EVs and solar panels in general it's at least misleading if not flatly false. The people I know who drive electrics aren't particularly wealthy. Other than Teslas, EVs now sell, after the rebate, at roughly the average price for a new car in the US, about $30,000. Decent used ones can be had for $12-15,000. Plenty of middle-class families manage to come up with that much and more for a car, so the implication that EVs are out of reach of the masses is just wrong. And unlike many tax breaks, the EV credit doesn't increase just because you're in a higher tax bracket, everybody gets the same $7500. A solar panel array actually costs less than the average cost of a new car, even before the tax rebate. And, both EVs and panels actually save the purchaser money in the long run. If they skew toward wealthier folks, it's probably because highly educated people are buying them. As far as states bidding for manufacturing facilities with millions in subsidies, that's now pretty much standard procedure. With China and others subsidizing manufacturing, we have to do it too, or else cede all production to others. When the US went for free trade and let China into the WTO, that's what we were committing ourselves to.
funding isn't what we need, Washington DC spends $31k/student, and has some of the dumbest kids in existence.
ForceScourge
Wonder why no comparisons where made to other companies that go after subsidies? Oh, because then it wouldn't be hit piece! Tesla's a company, I only trust any company so far, but this sort of "journalism" I trust even less.
As the posts here show:
If you like him and what they (he and the politicians) are doing, then subsidizing space travel and electric automobiles is laudatory.
If you don't like him or what they are doing, then looting the taxpayers is corrupt crony capitalism.
And just pointing this out will be problematic for most here.
The oil industry are subsidized too, throught the army budget and the lives of american citizens who invaded oil countries
....but let's face it, right now it's a market for the well-healed.
I find it ironic that these cars only sell when there are subsidies, and that those subsidies (and tax writeoffs) to to precisely the folks who need it least--the well off.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Are you comlaining about the Government investing in future technology or are you complaining about the Government giving a visionary money to make the future a better place?
I suspect you're actually complaining to make a provoking story to get ad revenue.
You all supported creating these idiotic subsidy programs to encourage businesses to do certain behaviors. Then you act shocked that certain businesses do certain behaviors in order to take advantage of the subsidies?
Slashdot is not homogeneous. Anyone can submit a story, and the editors will post anything which looks like effective clickbait.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Oh My God, what if we do all this and make a better world for our children's children and it all tunes out to be a scam?
So goes the current anti-think.
A sovereign state decide to spend taxpayers money to promote some activity. Someone engages in this activity and is therefore eligible to get the money. What is wrong?
The only concern we can have is whether our representants were right when they decided to spend money on something. We can ask for such a decision to be reversed, this is the democratic process.
Since we are on the subject of subsidies, can we talk about corn?
Five billion dollars translates to roughly 1% of global fossil fuel subsidies. Give Elon another couple of percent if you ask me.
Fossil fuels and fossil fuel using cars to a greater extent than most.
Just look at the lease rates for use of government lands for fossil fuel extraction.
Only an idiot disarms when his competition is armed to the teeth with government cheese.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
He's an engineer. Do you think he doesn't know how to maximize ROI? Good business sense and solving problems more efficiently than other providers at the government trough.
Since Tesla's first loans were repaid early and in full per DOE. I have no problem with them investing in new Technology.
Does any billion dollar company get that big without government support? Microsoft's original MS-DOS contract, IBM's slaes to every agency, Apple's presumed security backdoor, GM's Hummer sales, Ford Aerospace, etc, etc.
The complex relations among government agencies and large corporations is endemic. Elon Musk is no exception.
At least it's a private company that utilizes the scientific method to accomplish goals and achieve measurable success.
NASA and the DoD both use rigorous planning and oversight to insure that every task has a mission statement, milestones, and progress.
Contrast that with the rest of the Democratic Party's legacy centralized government. For the past 100 years, they've loaded the tax code with giveaways, we're up to 4,000,000 words of tax code that even the IRS says is no longer fair or enforceable. Wealth inequality very likely begins with tax inequality.
We have a mass of government employees -- it's practically a ratio of four taxpayers per government worker. The public school systems are drenched in national socialism and political correctness -- spending based on feelings and beliefs, as opposed to issue tracking, efficacy, and measurable solutions.
The soviet union and china reformed their central governments, the USA has not. Britain is down to six liberal democrat seats in parliament, apparently their people have realized that voting on emotional reasoning and vote-buying schemes is an ineffective waste.
It's not that the Republicans are all that much better of a choice, being a religious party, but they do make occasional squeaky noises about reform. They did work with Bill Clinton to establish PAYGO and Workfare, although both are largely bypassed or ignored today.
Government subsides for an oil lobby that makes buttloads of money off of outdated technology? I'm not for it.
Government subsidies for corporate-welfare defense contractors that make planes that only shoot a shot in anger because congresspeople need to justify their existence? I'm not for it.
Government subsidies for actual forward-looking technology development? Yeah, let's do it!
our military machine and our murderous forays into other nations. 5 billion isn't squat.
1. Name large business that isnt getting gov $ from in the government in some way .... waiting... crickets... pin drops.. NONE
2. You use variable math. A tax break is not a subsidy. (yes i know you can argue a tax reduction is a subsidy) -- "a sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive." Getting a tax break is keeping the money earned. If I work hard and make $100k and the tax rate is reduced, you didn’t GIVE me money you just took less of what I earned. A subsidy is when you ADD cash; ie. Invest in new ideas that can make America better, investing through grants for startup sand such. Someone gave the Internet as an example of a good government investment - and I agree, I would throw in the original function of the EPA - stopping rivers from burning, and would also through in the moonshot as a technology kickstarter.
3. It seems one group/entity receiving huge government tax breaks/subsidies or zero interest loans is OK. But another group getting similar breaks/loans/subsidies is 'bad'. My guy is ok to get $ but your guy is not (and vice versa).
4. Letting the government pick winners and losers will eventually go bad. A fair open process is critical. Blacklisting either liberals/conservatives, dems/repubs or tagging based on sex or religion is a slippery slope that will not end well (based on repeated historical patterns).
Finally yes people are rich. Ie the Koch brothers - and they donate a huge amount. Not much different than George Soros (he donates to things I think are abhorrent and I suspect people believe that the things the Koch brothers donate to might be considered absorbent to others). Individuals influence based on their beliefs – which is constitutionally protected. I like our system, it was a genius design, and I believe the original design was actually even better than what we have tweaked to get where we are.
It is the typical thing you see in any field where the ideology has even the most infinitesimal chance of taking even the most infinitesimal amount of profit from big oil. There are attacks launched at the persons behind the ideology. It is only a matter of time before we realize that oil is a really inefficient power source. Mr. Musk is just a person in the right place at the right time, oh and he happens to be a very wealthy genius. Huff Puff how dare he breeze past big oil in his efficient vehicle???? The very nerve of some people. So they attack. What a bunch of whinny little babies. No matter that they are literally rolling in profits they banked at the expense of the taxpayers. It is AOKAY for big oil to get buckets erm...truckloads....erm wait we need a tanker ship for that ...tanker ships full of money in subsidies, written off fines, government money to clean up their messes, and oh let's call in a few more tanker ships to haul about the money that the government spent on infrastructure to support big oil, gotta keep building those gas guzzlers right?? Last but not least, the huge amount of money that goes into attacking any and all alternative energy plans. So yeah, it is not if you support Mr. Musk or not; it is if you know that there is going to be a future and if you would like it to be a good one.
Math is HARD. $9k credit loss =/= 20-30k increase. Haters gonna hate.
How about the government subsidy of low paid employees the world over? All companies benefit from the governments topping up employee wages. I work in a university as a magnetic resonance spectroscopist. The government pays me about 160 a month in benefit as my wage isn't enough to live on.
I'm sure the government subsidy of large employers such as Tesco and Walmart is huge; this is saving these companies money on their wage bills.
Instead of giving subsidies for businesses they like, the government should simply do less stuff and lower the tax rate so much that internationalizing businesses will move back (on purpose). Then we'll have similarly exciting developments in all business fields, not just those that are politically correct or approved.
Also, the government doesn't "give subsidies" when it allows a tax break, it's just refraining from using its guns to threaten and imprison people over money less than it usually does.