How did Musk get so rich, anyway?
The Feds lavished money on him.
Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person.
The payments stretch back more than 20 years. Shortly after becoming CEO of a cash-strapped Tesla in 2008, Musk fought hard to secure a low-interest loan from the Energy Department, according to two people directly involved with the process,holding daily briefings with company executives about the paperwork and spending hours with a government loan officer.
…
DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, has sought to cut staff, slash budgets or cut contracts at all seven of the agencies where Musk’s companies have ongoing contracts. That includes the General Services Administration, Defense Department and Transportation Department.
Ungrateful fella, isn’t he.
“Not every entrepreneur at this scale has been this dependent on federal money — certainly not Nvidia, not Microsoft, nor Amazon, nor Meta,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, professor at the Yale School of Management, who noted that much of the funding has come during Democratic administrations. “With DOGE, there does seem to be a paradox there. He has been a big beneficiary of national industrial policy, especially Democrat industrial policy, through government funding.”
Paradox is one word for it. I can think of others.
John Helveston, a professor at George Washington University who studies electric vehicles, said Tesla is a prime example of the success that can come from government investment in nascent industries, though government assistance alone is not a guarantee for success.
By pushing to cut subsidies across all industries, Helveston said Musk is strangling a potential lifeline for smaller companies — and his competitors.
“Pretty much every aspect [of Tesla] has benefited from direct government subsidy or financing,” he said. “It’s not a weird phenomenon for Tesla to benefit from this, but it is certainly hypocritical.”
Yeh that’s one of the words.
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24 responses to “Origin story”
What’s trending:
“Nice little government department you’ve got here. A pity if somethin’ was to happen to it.”
Now where have we heard that sort of offer before? Ah yes; from the likes of John Dillinger, Baby-face Nelson and Al Capone in the Chicago of the 1920s.
“Nice little country you’ve got here Mr Zelensky. Pity if something more than the sample you’ve recently been provided with by my friend Vlad ‘Stonyface’ Putin here was to come about. But hey: you’ve got all these tons of minerals, and Vlad’s got his goons, but he’ll listen to me if I ask him to call them off.
“So I am sure we can make a deal.”
We know who the little ingrate cares about. He’s too stupid to care about anyone else.
Musk family slogan
Well he’s not stupid. Evil, yes, but stupid, no.
Nah, he’s stupid too. I haven’t seen any proof otherwise.
Of course there’s no proof; it’s not the kind of thing that can be proven. There’s plenty of evidence though. He’s wrong about everything, but not stupid.
Like a lot of things from the past, Ian Fleming’s novels have not aged well.
Do you remember that “Moonraker” is about a super rich industrialist villain who makes rockets and is trying to cause chaos because he’s secretly a NAZI? What a dumb idea to present in a modern world.
Well Rev I have been thinking about stories and legends… Gibson l think it was theorized was that one reason “Neuromancer” seemed so prophetic was because people with the know-how thought it was cool and the future to come was shaped by that fandom. Think about the sorts of stories *these* assholes consumed growing up. Maybe the reason they seem like Bond villains is because they kinda styled themselves after Bond villains.
It doesn’t explain guys like Miller and Bannon, but they’re more old school dark utopianists.
@5 I don’t know Ophelia, I mean Coel tried to provide evidence, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be explained away by greed, ambition, egomania, or dumb luck. Maybe his intelligence lies in making people think he’s smarter than he is. I can read a post or two by anyone here and see the intelligence. Has Musk tweeted or written anything anywhere with some kind of cleverness that wasn’t some self indulgent blather or malicious trolling? I mean is he well read? Is he logical? Is he grounded in reality? Not that I have seen. I don’t think that would count as ‘proof’ per se, but it would go a long way to make me think he’s not a completely egomaniacal man child with way too much money.
What makes you think he’s not an idiot? Honestly, I wouldn’t mind not thinking he’s one of the most disgusting human beings ever to have lived, but maybe if I could understand your reasoning (which I highly respect, by the way), than maybe I could change my mind.
And I’m not tasking you with this, we can also agree to disagree. :) However, “being wrong about everything” as you say, kinda points to the stupid rather than the opposite.
I never said he’s not a completely egomaniacal man child with way too much money! Or that he’s not one of the most disgusting human beings ever to have lived. I said he’s not stupid, which is quite different. By “wrong about everything” I meant mostly morally wrong, including making morally wrong choices, which is still not the same thing as stupidity.
He’s drastically different from Trump. One can’t watch Trump in action for 30 seconds without realizing how stupid he is. That’s not true of Musk.
Fair enough, he’s not obviously stupid like The Donald, and probably not quite as stupid, but that’s a low bar.
I’m with Ophelia here. The true menace of Musk and Vance is that, unlike The Donald, they are not stupid. Mendacious. Grasping. Ignorant. Callous. Insensitive. Cruel. Misanthropic. Atrocious. These all, and may more, apply. But stupid they ain’t.
Exactly.
He’s also making politically unwise decisions but, well, he’s not elected is he?
Anyways as someone who clocked in at 131 when I was ten I can assure you I’ve made many batshit crazy and/or stupid decisions. Elon isn’t cracking 140.
Wut?
Once again, I would turn Hanlon’s Razor on its head: Never attribute to lack of intelligence that which can be adequately explained by bad motives. Joseph Goebbels was allegedly a genius. Things like intelligence, logical and analytical skills etc. are tools for achieving goals. Factual accuracy is one such goal, but far from the only one. Other examples might include psychological comfort, “winning” arguments, getting along with our peers, siding with our own tribe, opposing rivalling tribes etc.
I do agree with twiliter in the sense that I never think of anyone as “stupid” unless I think they have the mental and cognitive tools to know better. E.g. it wouldn’t occur to me to think of small children, the mentally impaired, or for that matter animals as stupid. So I guess I think “stupidity” has more to do with motivation than lack of intelligence as well..
You Reverence @ #12:
To which I would add: totally lacking in insight into themselves; though which is the most lacking is somewhat moot.
On second thoughts, if they are both totally lacking, there can be no winner in that contest.
@OB #15:
Well Coel isn’t here to tell you what Musk’s IQ is so I figured I’d fill in. Y’know what sort of people are insufferable? People who’ve actually had their IQ scored.
@RDB #6:
It is grimly amusing that the US and Russia are now run by the sort of people who would be the villains in James Bond or Superman films.
Sadly there’s no dashing heroes to come to our rescue.
As I mentioned several times during Trump’s first presidency, reality is such a disappointment. At least Ernst Stavro Blofeld was a worthy enemy. On the same note, one of the things I actually enjoyed about the much maligned Star Wars prequels was that they didn’t make Palpatine such an obvious villain that the Jedi ended up looking like idiots for ever trusting this guy in the first place. As it turns out, reality is more like Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth, where the bad guys might as well have ”crook” written in large letters on their foreheads (Really, Bard? After everything that’s happened you’re going to ask Alfrid to look after your children?! What the Hell is wrong with you?!).
A major premise of Nineteen Eighty-Four was that the truth was so dangerous to the people in charge that the vast apparatus of censorship and deception controlled by the Ministry of Truth (including rewriting every single copy of every edition of The Times every time party policy changed in order to ”prove” that the current orthodoxy had always been the the official party position) as well as the equally impressive apparatus of surveillance, identification, arrest, forced conversion, and ultimately ”vaporization ” of even the most powerless thought criminal administered by the Ministry of Love, was absolutely necessary. In reality, as it turns out, you can tell the most obvious, unambiguous, shameless lies a thousand times every day, without any effort to cover your back or even make the lies seem superficially plausible, and not just get away with it forever, but actually gain support for it. As I said, reality is such a disappointment…
BK @ 19 – ah, got it. I was thinking speed limits, which made no sense.
Trump and Musk are more like Batman villains, IMHO. They aren’t suave enough to be Bond villians and not super-powered enough to be Superman villains. They are buffoons who manage to get into positions that allow them to do things the rest of us can’t do because we are either honest, have no power, or just plain can think our way out of a paper bag.
I’d say Trump makes a lousy Palpatine, but a plausible Jabba the Hutt.
A useless Sauron, but an excellent Master of Laketown.
No Voldemort, or even Draco Malfoy, but a very good Dudley Dursley.