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

Seems pointless point to me. What am I missing?

[aussersterne]

The reason we use government funding to incentivize things is because we as a public want people to do/build/invent/fix those things and are willing to pay for that to happen.

So Elon Musk comes along and says he will and then he does. And then we pay him what, as a public, we planned to pay (via those incentives) to whoever did them.

Seems like everything is going according to plan, for all involved, and that we're lucky enough to have found something of a one-stop-shop for incentivized work that few others are willing to take on, but that seems to really move the needle on tech progress for something other than consumer electronics gadgets.

Win/win all around. Smells like right wing paranoia and demagoguery to me in here.