Pretty much every company relies on government subsidies of some form or another. (Cheap transportation infrastructure and a workforce partially or entirely educated via the public school system are two of the larger subsidies governments provide.) Taxpayers generally don't have a problem with that when those subsidies are a net benefit to society.
Yeah, but this is taken to the extreme. I mean, Tesla isn't currently profitable and they are relying on subsidies to just stay afloat. We're talking billions of dollars of government cash flowing into Tesla/SpaceX to keep them from going bankrupt. You can't tell me it's the same for other car companies because it's simply not true.
I've read that GM received a taxpayer funded cash infusion of around $49 billion around 2009-10. I've also read that after the Treasury sold it's last shares of GM the final loss to taxpayers was somewhere in the $9.5-$10 billion range. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Tesla's subsidies have ever reached that level. I believe Tesla is staying afloat largely due to investor capital, or am I incorrect?
Disclosure: I work at SpaceX as a technician so I may be biased.
- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — $2.06 Billion in subsidies
Took 10 seconds of Googling to find that.
Plus Tesla is actually innovating on a massive scale and pulling the world into a more sustainable, quieter future. I too hate subsidies but as long as the US Governemnt is going to keep up corporate welfare it may as well be towards the actual innovators building a better future than the laggards trying their best to maintain the status quo so they can extract maximum profits.
To be fair, pretty much all of his companies rely on government subsidies. He's basically built his businesses around it.