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Elon Musk on How to Build the Future

(www.ycombinator.com)
1106 points sama | 5 comments | 15 Sep 16 18:05 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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kstenerud ◴[15 Sep 16 19:30 UTC] No.12509079[source]▶
It always saddens me when I see a slew of Debbie Downer comments from the HN crowd.

"Yes, he ushered in the electric car revolution, but the production carbon footprint is still huge!"

"Yes, he's building rockets, but he took a bunch of government money!"

"Yes, he's paving the way to Mars, but what has he done for world hunger?"

And it not just with Musk, but really with anyone who has been successful. I would have thought that the technologists were above such petty envy. We're here to improve humanity's lot, aren't we?

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1. ythl ◴[15 Sep 16 21:35 UTC] No.12510007[source]▶
> "Yes, he's building rockets, but he took a bunch of government money!"

To be fair, pretty much all of his companies rely on government subsidies. He's basically built his businesses around it.

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2. elihu ◴[15 Sep 16 22:36 UTC] No.12510431[source]▶
Pretty much every company relies on government subsidies of some form or another. (Cheap transportation infrastructure and a workforce partially or entirely educated via the public school system are two of the larger subsidies governments provide.) Taxpayers generally don't have a problem with that when those subsidies are a net benefit to society.
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3. ythl ◴[16 Sep 16 13:44 UTC] No.12513913[source]▶
Yeah, but this is taken to the extreme. I mean, Tesla isn't currently profitable and they are relying on subsidies to just stay afloat. We're talking billions of dollars of government cash flowing into Tesla/SpaceX to keep them from going bankrupt. You can't tell me it's the same for other car companies because it's simply not true.
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4. Inconel ◴[18 Sep 16 00:57 UTC] No.12523371{3}[source]▶
I've read that GM received a taxpayer funded cash infusion of around $49 billion around 2009-10. I've also read that after the Treasury sold it's last shares of GM the final loss to taxpayers was somewhere in the $9.5-$10 billion range. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Tesla's subsidies have ever reached that level. I believe Tesla is staying afloat largely due to investor capital, or am I incorrect?

Disclosure: I work at SpaceX as a technician so I may be biased.

5. TimJRobinson ◴[19 Sep 16 23:40 UTC] No.12535679{3}[source]▶
http://www.cheatsheet.com/business/high-on-the-hog-the-top-8...

- GM - $3.58 Billion in subsidies

- Ford - $2.52 Billion in subsidies

- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — $2.06 Billion in subsidies

Took 10 seconds of Googling to find that.

Plus Tesla is actually innovating on a massive scale and pulling the world into a more sustainable, quieter future. I too hate subsidies but as long as the US Governemnt is going to keep up corporate welfare it may as well be towards the actual innovators building a better future than the laggards trying their best to maintain the status quo so they can extract maximum profits.