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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

The government did not "bail out Tesla". They lent them $465 million, and Tesla paid it all back, plus interest, ten years before it was due. [1]

The government DID paid out GM, Chrysler and Ford. I.e. it lent $80.5 billion dollars and $10 billion will never be repaid. [2] Taxpayers paid for that so those companies can keep making private profits.

I wish this kind of misinformation would die, because it's so easy to google and it's factual.

[1] https://money.cnn.com/2013/05/22/autos/tesla-loan-repayment/...

[2] https://www.thebalance.com/auto-industry-bailout-gm-ford-chr...

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A loan that the government makes when (1) it is not their business to make these types of loans and (2) the private market is not willing to make this type of loan is a bailout. So yes they did bail out Tesla. You can argue that the bailouts of the big three were far bigger and much more egregious and you would be absolutely right. But you cannot argue that tesla would have benefited if there were no bailouts, because they received a bailout and they would not exist now if they hadn't received one.

Note that the government didn't "bail out" Ford either:

The Ford Motor Company didn't need the funds since it had already cut costs. But it asked to be included so it wouldn't suffer by competing with companies who already had government subsidies. (from your link).

I can't find anything about the $10B that won't be repaid. Do you have further details?

> Note that the government didn't "bail out" Ford either:

OK sure. The government gave a private company taxpayer money that didn't need it so it's profits wouldn't suffer.

> I can't find anything about the $10B that won't be repaid. Do you have further details?

Last sentance in the first paragraph of my link says "In the end, taxpayers lost $10.2 billion." (with a footnote to [0])

[0] https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/TAR...

>> Note that the government didn't "bail out" Ford either:

> OK sure. The government gave a private company taxpayer money that didn't need it so it's profits wouldn't suffer.

Agreed. Same as Tesla (in your words: "The government did not "bail out Tesla". They lent them $465 million, and Tesla paid it all back, plus interest, ten years before it was due.")

> Last sentance in the first paragraph of my link says "In the end, taxpayers lost $10.2 billion." (with a footnote to [0])

Thanks. Ironically that reference says "While the auto industry rescue resulted in a cost of $9.3 billion to the government". I guess maybe they are correcting for inflation?

> Agreed. Same as Tesla (in your words: "The government did not "bail out Tesla". They lent them $465 million, and Tesla paid it all back, plus interest, ten years before it was due.")

No, not the same at all. One was a loan (which was paid back plus interest), while the other was a gift that will never be paid back.

> No, not the same at all. One was a loan (which was paid back plus interest), while the other was a gift that will never be paid back.

From your linked article:

On June 23, 2009, Ford received a $5.9 billion loan from the Energy Department's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program.... Ford will repay this loan by 2022.

(Note "loan".. "repay").

> But it asked to be included so it wouldn't suffer

You can call it what you want but in the end the govt bailed them out.

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