
Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by $4.9B in government subsidies - em3rgent0rdr
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
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djrogers
Wasn't that the point of the subsidies? To foster innovation, and kickstart
green energy / transportation?

Sounds like it's working....

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jkn
Indeed...

From the article: "He definitely goes where there is government money".

In other words, he definitely goes where we wish more people would go.

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dayaz36
A two year old bs hit piece that's been repeatedly debunked gets resurfaced on
hn after two years...why am I not surprised

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comstock
It might help alter people's viewpoints more efffectively if you linked to
debunking.

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CamperBob2
Probably the most effective way to debunk these types of stories is to point
out the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies we've put into fossil-
fuel energy over the years. A few billion more or less for Tesla, SpaceX, and
SolarCity hardly seems worth complaining about in comparison.

It's been argued that most of the US defense budget is a "subsidy" of our
appetite for oil. I usually find such arguments facile, but in that particular
instance, I'll be darned if I can come up with any good rejoinders.

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0x4f3759df
Reminds me of people who complain about the cost of 1-mile of lightrail but
don't know the cost of 1-mile of freeway.

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CamperBob2
I'd probably be guilty of that one myself. Energy can be converted from one
form to another when/where needed, and wheeled vehicles can go wherever
there's a road, but fixed rail is stuck in one place forever. A rant for a
different thread...

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0x4f3759df
Wheeled vehicles can go wherever we build roads... each road costs the
taxpayer X / mile / year ... if we knew these costs we could make some
rational decisions. The basic urbanism thesis posited by Charles Marohn and
others, which I subscribe to, is that suburbs are not dense enough to maintain
themselves (maintain roads, sewer, etc.) with the tax base

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venning
Needs a "(2015)" label.

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KirinDave
Wow. Hold on. I need to find a piece of furniture to lean up against, I'm in
such shock.

Musk speaks out against Trump and then this banal piece about public subsidies
reappears? Yeah. It's just such shocking timing I'm going to need to lie down.

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greenyoda
As others have already noted, this was written before the election (2015).

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KirinDave
I did say "re".

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tedsanders
It seems the subsidies are accomplishing their purpose. They attracted private
businesses to compete in the industry, and that competition and experience is
bringing costs down to self-sustaining levels.

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hindsightbias
Live by the subsidy, die by the subsidy.

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sirmike_
Tesla Inc TSLA (NASDAQ) 339.85USDPrice decrease0.52 (0.15%) Closed: Jun 2,
7:59 PM EDT - Disclaimer After-hours: 339.65Price decrease

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plxx7733
1) US Army needs MANY batteries and 2) NSA needs many - especially small -
batteries to do their job. Can you imagine how surveillance would spread
everywhere if just batteries would be small enough? 3) Germany car industry is
HUGE. Why not take some business away from them?

