Ayn Rand said that of all the things public funds were ever spent on (outside of judicial and national defense), NASA was the most worthy. She wrote admiringly about NASA, revealing a deep respect for its technology, scientific pursuit, and its Apollo launches. They even specifically invited her to an Apollo launch.
I don't think someone that hated NASA - or supposedly would dislike a private SpaceX - would write: "Apollo 11: A Symbol of Man's Greatness." Clearly since Ayn liked NASA, she would love SpaceX as a step in the right direction over public space exploration.
Because she was against it?
Those things are based in principles. In principle I have the right to state funds for all of my children. Because I am against such subsidies I have decided not to request them, even though the state continues to insist that I should and that it is my right. And even though I pay for other people exercising this right.
For Ayn Rand to rail a life long in many different pamphlets against state run entities only to turn around and to use them when times were a bit tougher seems hypocritical to me.
Ayn Rand ended up taking government benefits because she had to, not because she was trying to get back what she paid in. That's the key part.
Even if she could afford to take care of herself and was just trying to game the system to get her money back, that's morally pretty suspect, too. Imagine trying to mount the same argument about someone who deliberately crashed their car to "recover some of that money" they had to pay in insurance premiums.
Rand spent her whole life decrying people who are dependent on government assistance as looters and parasites, and then she spent the last few years of her life completely dependent on government assistance without it changing her stated beliefs. If you don't see the hypocrisy there, you're trying awfully hard not to.
She is an illustration that you can lead a successful, productive, non-moochery life and still end up needing government assistance at some point.
They are subsidized, but I assume she was at the end of the income spectrum that is doing the subsidizing.
Not a Rand-lover or libertarian (in fact, quite the opposite) -- but this is how I always looked at it.
She didn't buy her own insurance. She got sick and in order to avoid bankruptcy and continue living, she got on medicare just like all the "takers" she so famously railed against.
She certainly didn't pay her fair share for the insurance. Heck we don't even know if she paid any taxes during that 5 year period which was after she stopped writing and Objectivism had ebbed quite a bit.
It's still a good company, doing good things, etc etc.
(b) They got the sweetheart-deal to end all sweetheart-deals: a gigantic cash infusion structured as a loan with a market-beating interest rate, rather than as equity which would have entitled the government to a share of the upside.
How were they incentivized to repay early? Having a below-market interest rate seems like it would do the opposite.
Still, compared to the other similar loans offered by the US government, I have to judge the Tesla loans as a success.
There's also the taxes the government collects through suppliers to Tesla, as well as sales taxes generated when consumers purchase electric vehicles, etc, taxes from capital gains and dividends of tesla stock, taxes from salary taxes.
I'm simplifying here because I haven't talked about the opportunity cost of the taxes from a petrol car the consumer didn't buy or the other job employees could have held. In general, however, the government will profit as long as value of taxes from economic growth and other benefits exceed the cost of the loan. And remember, for the government, the cost of the loan isn't for taxpayers to bear, but for all holders of US dollars, which include foreign nations and other non-taxpayers, through temporary inflation; Since the government can always print money to lend, and destroy money when the money is repaid, unless the business fails, in which case every US dollar holding person suffers.
Overdoing it, however, will mean displacing existing investors who are arguably better posed to select winners and negatively affect the economy. What I am saying is some level of government intervention may actually be profitable for taxpayers, even if the investment structure doesn't appear so on the surface.
It's like the "Why do governments invest in loss-making airlines?" The answer of course is to bring more tourists to their country by undercharging plane tickets.