{"id":176082,"date":"2020-09-09T18:17:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T23:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/09\/09\/the-rugged-individualist\/"},"modified":"2020-09-09T18:17:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T23:17:00","slug":"the-rugged-individualist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/09\/09\/the-rugged-individualist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rugged Individualist"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am referring, of course, to Elon Musk, whose empire has been subsidized to the tune of almost $5 billion<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The actual number is likely far higher, given the indirect subsidies received, such as allowing PayPal, where he made original fortune, function like a bank without having to follow banking regulations, “Because \u2026\u2026\u2026 Internet.”<\/p>\n

All of these fortunes have resulted from government subsidies, whether it’s Amazon’s early ability to evade sales taxes, Google’s military funding, etc.<\/p>\n

The reporters at the LA Times have almost certainly missed some of the subsidies, because many, if not most, of them are indirect:<\/span><\/p>\n

Los Angeles entrepreneur Elon Musk has built a multibillion-dollar fortune running companies that make electric cars, sell solar panels and launch rockets into space.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s built those companies with the help of billions in government subsidies.<\/p>\n

Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support, according to data compiled by The Times. The figure underscores a common theme running through his emerging empire: a public-private financing model underpinning long-shot start-ups.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Los Angeles entrepreneur Elon Musk has built a multibillion-dollar fortune running companies that make electric cars, sell solar panels and launch rockets into space.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s built those companies with the help of billions in government subsidies.<\/p>\n

Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support, according to data compiled by The Times. The figure underscores a common theme running through his emerging empire: a public-private financing model underpinning long-shot start-ups. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These are not long-shot startups.  These are meticulously constructed to extract maximum subsidies.<\/p>\n

Also, SolarCity was not a long-shot, it was a corrupt bailout of his cousins who had run the company into the ground.<\/p>\n

But public subsidies for Musk\u2019s companies stand out both for the amount, relative to the size of the companies, and for their dependence on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment support is a theme of all three of these companies, and without it none of them would be around,\u201d said Mark Spiegel, a hedge fund manager for Stanphyl Capital Partners who is shorting Tesla\u2019s stock, a bet that pays off if Tesla shares fall.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, they are short sellers, but that should not mask Musk’s hypocrisy in preaching rugged individualism while meticulously constructing his companies to maximize taxpayer subsidies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am referring, of course, to Elon Musk, whose empire has been subsidized to the tune of almost $5 billion. The actual number is likely far higher, given the indirect subsidies received, such as allowing PayPal, where he made original fortune, function like a bank without having to follow banking regulations, “Because \u2026\u2026\u2026 Internet.” All …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[365,368,457,364,387,419,634,471],"class_list":["post-176082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-business","tag-corruption","tag-energy","tag-evil","tag-hypocrisy","tag-space","tag-subsidies","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}