Elon Musk’s growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies
Libs complain about crony capitalism only if said companies are successful, such as Tesla or Goldman Sachs, but ignore the failures such as SOlyndra. The left wants the most successful companies to fail, but wants to bailout the losers like General Motors. The same libs who want higher taxes and more regulation suddenly become free market purists when attacking companies like Tesla. To the left, the free market only works one way: for companies, especially high-IQ successful ones, to fail. When a company becomes too successful, the libs go on the attack, with frequent targets being Google & Facebook (privacy concerns), Amazon (taxes), Walmart (wages), General Electric (taxes), Apple (wages, taxes), Tesla (subsidies), Monsanto (pollution), Tobacco industry (cancer), Microsoft (antitrust), Starbucks, Snapchat (for supposedly being a bubble), Uber (for replacing the obsolete leftist cab industry), Goldman & Bank of America (bailouts), and so on…
Even though I lean republican/libertarian when discussing economic issues, given the US government’s access to extremely cheap borrowing, an argument can be made for some ‘soft’ crony capitalism (yeah, I know it’s a dirty word) to allocate resources in ways the free market hasn’t, such as with funding Tesla and other tech initiatives, a famous example being the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. Contrary to the oversimplified belief that public allocation and free markets must be diametrically opposed, this allocation system can compliment the free market, creating long-term value through the development of new technologies and services, whereas most entitlement spending programs don’t create long-term investment. That’s also why I support more money for gifted education programs since investing in the best and the brightest possibly one of the best investments any government can make. Tesla is worth over $40 billion – a huge ROI from the $500 million that was lent to them, which Tesla has long since re-paid. Good luck getting that kind of ROI with foodstamps and disability.