The loan was paid back early and did exactly what it was supposed to do (incentivize alternative energy company creation). I think they may have even paid an early payment penalty to be done with it? So it wasn't a bailout at all.
SpaceX doesn't get those contracts for nothing - they're the first to commercialize reusable rockets in a serious way and have massively reduced costs as a result.
All of this stuff was explicitly laid out by Musk (despite massive knee-jerk criticism which continues despite the proved success) and his companies were able to execute on it.
It's not luck to do this repeatedly in multiple extremely challenging verticals (at the same time) successfully.
> The loan was paid back early and did exactly what it was supposed to do (incentivize alternative energy company creation). I think they may have even paid an early payment penalty to be done with it? So it wasn't a bailout at all.
Do you know why he paid back early? In the contract the DOE would have had some ownership in Tesla after the payoff period. He paid it early so that the Tax Payer wouldn't benefit from the deal. It would have been a better deal for the US Tax Payer for him to have not paid it back early. It should be clear to anyone owning TSLA stock that we, as the public got screwed there.
And yes, it was a bailout. The government was trying to create a EV market and Tesla was about to fail. The market for EVs just didn't exist at that point and the DOE LPO had a driving mission to create one. So they bailed Tesla out because they wanted a market (notice private equity didn't believe in Tesla succeeding, otherwise Musk would have raised the cash from the private markets).
This is how governments create markets, by paying for technology until the market matures. This is true of Computers and other high technology.
If the government didn't care to create an EV market, Tesla would have been dead a long time ago. Is this Musk's genius or the genius of our policy makers?
SpaceX is exactly the same story. The government wanted a private space industry and so NASA was given a mission to create one. SpaceX is barely surviving now even with the government help.
And of course we have no idea what kind of bribery Musk must have participated in to get the loans and contracts he did from the government. I'm sure time will reveal them. But It's naive to think there wasn't anything.
SpaceX doesn't get those contracts for nothing - they're the first to commercialize reusable rockets in a serious way and have massively reduced costs as a result.
All of this stuff was explicitly laid out by Musk (despite massive knee-jerk criticism which continues despite the proved success) and his companies were able to execute on it.
It's not luck to do this repeatedly in multiple extremely challenging verticals (at the same time) successfully.