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Comment by frgtpsswrdlame | Hacker News Reader

The subsidies are directly funding Musk's wallet as much or more than they are funding battery research.

I get that you have strong feelings. But this is just uninformed. If you took a sec to understand Musk's comp structure you'd see that its paper wealth, as in he doesn't take cash out of the company. Instead he puts cash in the company. Also he only sold stock to pay taxes. I'd guess its likely he paid more in taxes than you, if you're an average earner.

~$600 million in taxes actually.[1] But strangely nobody seems to subtract that amount from the value of the electric vehicle credits...

Anyone who's been there and done this knows that what the IRS giveth with one hand, the IRS taketh away with the other. The house never loses, and there is no house like the United States Government.

[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-21/tesla-s-m...

>If you took a sec to understand Musk's comp structure you'd see that its paper wealth, as in he doesn't take cash out of the company.

So far, the obvious implication is that at some point in the future Musk will become even more rich, mainly off converting his paper wealth to cash wealth. I cannot get behind the idea of taxpayer wealth being used to make billions of dollars for a few wealthy individuals.

>I'd guess its likely he paid more in taxes than you, if you're an average earner.

Yeah and? I'm talking about 5 bil in subsidies.

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