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Comment by anonreeeeplor | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk needs trade barriers to remain in place. And he needs trade barriers for space and robotics.

Buying Twitter, the primary location for political disagreements and communications, is a sort of cover bet to negotiate later.

Interesting to note Trump staying away from Twitter altogether. He likely doesn’t want to give anyone, including Musk, and leverage or perceived leverage over him.

What is interesting is he has likely secured the nomination and may be able to win without Twitter, which would be a major signal that he is uncontrollable

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> he needs trade barriers for space

Sorry, what? SpaceX is a generation ahead of any other launch vehicle in use or development the world around.

> SpaceX told the U.S. Trade Representative in a letter dated Dec. 10 and first reported last week that European subsidies to Arianespace, Europe's primary space launch provider, created an "imbalanced competitive advantage that threatens fair trade".

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1QF2AR/

They want to hinder competition

It's moving very fast, yet you don't hear about them attempts here in the west

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ARxkXFp3Li8R0JgXBHy-Sw

Without subsidies, it's impossible to achieve, it's just like with nuclear power plants, if the public is not involved, nobody will want to invest, Musk knows that very well, he love them subsidies

He also wouldn't be able to be competitive if the government didn't offer grants/benefits for EVs

> want to hinder competition

Of course. Everyone does. If you don’t, you’re an idiot or a non-participant in our market economy.

Very different from SpaceX “need[ing] trade barriers.”

> here in the west

ArianeSpace is French/EU.

> wouldn't be able to be competitive if the government didn't offer grants/benefits for EVs

SpaceX would. They wouldn’t exist without them. But their marginal economics don’t depend on them.

Chinese will catch them soon, the way the Chinese caught their electric car efforts.

Having an entire nation state level effort, with far more capital and far better trained workforce, which China has, and the ability to copy the leader.

China will surpass SpaceX in a handful of years. The process is already underway.

In the whole it might be a good thing because it will probably force the United States to actually give a sh*t about competing in space, and subsidize SpaceX heavily.

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