US government is adamant on making Elon rich and poor at the same time
Those handouts were intentional incentives to invent tech the government saw a need for.
Regrettably for the government (and society), the guy who ended up taking advantage of those incentives the most ended up being a complete nitwit. So, we're kind of stuck with him until the government actually grows a pair and gives the SEC actual teeth, but too many nitwits are influential and would also be hurt by an SEC that does more than slap them on the wrist, so it's never going to happen
/Rant /personal opionions
Wow, what terrible luck for that to keep happening!
I pray to god to be a nitwit like that.
Now, if were as smart as someone like me, he would agree with my politics and sensibilities.
If you have a company that makes bridges and the government hires you to make a bridge is that also a handout?
Only the company that did better work for less is guilty of being a grifter. /s
It's not regrettable for the US that we have the world's leading rocket launch company and the largest EV company (outside China). It's actually pretty great for us.
What do you what the SEC to do about spacex?
the ROI for govt investment in spacex has been more than 10x which is a crazy number considering the amount vnc/hedge funds spend on trying to reach a fraction of those returns.
Additionally, this is survivorship bias. You can find lots of very risky investments that will pay 10x if they mature.
The applicability of survialship bias depends on if you are assessing government investment success in general, or SpaceX success.
Time has shown that a few research contracts for spaceX were objectively a good bet.
>You can find lots of very risky investments that will pay 10x if they mature.
yes, but it is harder to find investments that do mature and pay 10X.
They want 100x returns from their one winning investment, but most VC funds fail to find their unicorn.
Yes, selection bias, but also conflating funds with unicorns!
There was a moral environmental argument for government establish the rebates, so presumably the government wants the purchases made and rebates claimed.
I think the ideal for society would be for him to lose leadership over those companies and just disconnect from the internet/enjoy life, but I don't see him ever doing that
Entirely false. That's just a cheap hit on Musk.
His first company did not. X (which became part of PayPal of course) did not. Neuralink did not. His funding of OpenAI did not.
So what are you going to say? You can start a successful rocket company that delivers a lot of payload to space, people to the Moon or Mars, and you plan to not involve the US Government / NASA? Ha! Sure. Please research what the launch sector looked like before SpaceX, what were the options?
You're going to start or take over an energy company (SolarCity) and it's not going to cross paths with the government? Solar shouldn't be subsidized? Yeah ok.
You're going to deploy utility scale energy storage (Tesla), and it's not going to involve dealing with governments? Hmmm.
You're going to attempt the Boring Company, digging long stretches underground, and you're not going to involve the government. Right.
You're going to take on a bunch of the largest companies on earth in terms of sales (car companies), including some of the most politically connected (GM, Ford; both of which have rather notorious histories of killing competition using politics), and you're not going to help your customers save money by making sure they qualify for EV subsidies? Un huh.
Whatever accomplishment you want to make in the world, it's no excuse to be an ass.
Why should I care if Musk makes a fool of himself when trying to talk about anything outside his competency? Why would I become emotionally charged about such a meaningless topic? His detractors do, they can't control themselves. It's because they now view him as someone to fight with in the forever culture war; they previously viewed him overwhelmingly as an ally, prior to the Trump years.
At issue is whether people can be rational enough to control their emotions and separate out Musk's obnoxious personality, the way he broadcasts it often, from the factual reality of his accomplishments.
The need of his detractors to strip him of all accomplishment, is plainly pathetic. It's easy to recognize both good and bad in regards to the life of a person, without lying and pretending someone like Musk is just all bad/negatives (terrible person, zero accomplishments - that's the detractor position).
They view him as a political and cultural opponent (to one degree or another). If you're their opponent, you must be entirely destroyed (not partially, entirely). Since we live in a culture of extremes in terms of politics / partisanship. Their opponents can have no good qualities, no positives, they're all nazis across the board.
George W Bush garners a lot more sympathy/ respect from the same exact people than Musk does. The guy that launched a war with Iraq that got hundreds of thousands of people killed in the following civil war, he's more likable than Musk per their views. That's the insanity we're dealing with. Because Michelle Obama likes Bush, and Ellen Degeneres likes Bush, the Clintons built a rapport with the Bush family, so golly gee he can't be all bad, tee hee, it's so cute how he paints and stuff. The same people called Bush a nazi while he was in office. It's because he's no longer viewed as part of the culture war, they called off the attack.
That said, I've seen no evidence that he's contributed more than funding and hype for his companies. Perhaps that's enough for some people to call him a genius, and I suppose in those domains he is, but everything I've seen w.r.t his engineering indicates to me that he's an idiot. That wouldn't be a problem we're it not for him giving out bad engineering takes everywhere, but I digress.
@ George Bush, I'd definitely want to include his pushing common core, banning government funds for stem cell research, tax cuts, financial deregulation, waterboarding, and making Dick Cheney his VP on his list of failures
I evaluated him as a person who inserted himself and made engineering decisions for good or ill and the result speaks for themselves.
Now, whether or not we agree if Musk is good at engineering is beside my point. We should hold our entrepreneurs to higher standard, and not excuse their shitty behaviors.
The things I like most in a friend often come with a price.
From what I can tell, many successful people are asses and their is a linkage between those two issues.
Media tends to warp how much we can understand about a public person, so it is hard to judge.
Even the successful asses I have personally met, I usually can't imagine removing the ass without removing what made them successful. It's not just a crazy artist stereotype.
We can do better. Why not?
You and I can do better because we care to improve ourselves.
Your answer is unrealistic. Have you ever successfully changed a narcissistic arsehole? I certainly don't know how to. I have heard some arseholes talk the talk about how they will change their destructive behaviours (although more usually just denial and excuses), but I have rarely seen them actually succeed in changing.
I think there are reasonable arguments that solar subsidies shouldn't exist. But if you want to start a solar company what are you going to do? Not take them and also somehow contractually bar your customers from taking them?
These are weird arguments to make against a company.
Ghandi was a pedophile, MLK was a wifebeater, Mother Teresa was a homophobe, Jefferson was slave owner, ect.