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Comment by gordon_freeman | Hacker News Reader

isn't it true that all of Musk's companies benefiting from the governments' help in terms of federal subsidies and space contracts? Do you think without it he would have been this successful?

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The other takeaway would be that Musk, unlike all those other billionaires, is working on things that are in the public interest. He generally wasn't the instigator for the govt subsidies, but his interests of "make money while making the world a better place" are pretty well aligned with the governments interests of "spend money in the USA while making the world a better place".

"In the public interest" is a very debateable term. I consider the way Google handles privacy and their cloud push very against the human interest. Of course, Google would argue offering free services that connect and inform people is in the public interest.

Your vision may align with the governments then, given that the government isn't offering subsidies for companies to invest in cloud

I think you're forgetting about PayPal.

Ok. All but one then.

Yes, but that was the one that made him successful.

And Zip2?

Not sure why you are getting downvoted, seems like a honest question.

How are space contracts governments' help and not SpaceX helping government from the evil ULA?

The intent of the COTS contracts was to procure launches for much less than the usual price by providing up-front payments in exchange for a block buy of future launches. Seems to have worked great. Commercial companies sign contracts like that on occasion, when they don't like the prices from their current suppliers.

because I have said that assuming that Musk's main goal with SpaceX is not to send the supply (or astronauts in near future) to Space Station. His main mission with SpaceX is to help create a self-sustaining city on Mars. It seems to me he is using government's space contract money to pay the bills till he achieves his main mission. In that sense, I'd say that Govt is helping him and not the other way around.

He certainly has benefitted from government programs (and of course from the general commercial situation in the US, lots of smart people here, centuries of science and engineering, etc.)

That doesn't really speak to him being a closet authoritarian or anything, though.

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