How Does Musk's Government Funding Compare To Competitors?

Rei writes: We recently discussed an article in the LA Times complaining about how Elon Musk has built his corporate empires — Solar City, Tesla Motors and SpaceX — on the back of government subsidies. However, how does the funding compare in context to various competitors? USC professor Greg Autry breaks it down, noting among other things that SpaceX's competitors have benefited from decades of tremendous government money and a launch monopoly, while the Volt receives — on a percentage basis — 2 1/2 times greater subsidy than a Model S, and was developed on the government's dime.

Comments

Re:Wipe your mouth, Slashdot

[Twinbee]

You're right. People aren't appreciative *enough* of him.

Let's see. Creates the best car ever, creates rockets for fun and as insurance to potentially save humanity by going to Mars, going to create rockets at least half the price as competitors, and potentially 100x cheaper, wants to save the Earth from CO2 and is beginning to do it, amazing engineer, helped create Paypal (when it was good), open-sourced patents, envisaged design for hyperloop, building the largest battery factory ever made by an order of magnitude or more, wanted to originally research supercaps (great area to study!), cares about quality rather than just money. Put every last penny he had at his own cost in order to save Tesla and SpaceX. Speaks frankly during interviews.

No one like him.