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Comment by joering2 | Hacker News Reader

> It's such a shame that so many people with Elon kind of money aren't doing anything to transform us into a spacefaring species.

"Elon kind of money?"

Heard of government subsidies?

https://ideapod.com/elon-musks-business-empire-fueled-4-9-bi...

Edit: not taking sides and adding my subjective point to the article; just merely stating fact that Mr. Musk projects are in large part government-funded.

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Pardon my French, but that’s a load of bullshit in this context. SpaceX is privately funded and only receives money from the government from the launch contracts it sells.

That amount is for Tesla and SolarCity combined. To put things into perspective, GM received a $50B bailout, Ford got almost $6B for “energy-efficient” cars, as did Nissan with $1.6B.

Finally, almost all of those are loans, tax credits and incentives, not money 'out of pocket'. The goal is always to generate more wealth than was “spent”.

Also, generally, WTF. Tesla - unlike most others - pays back its government loans on time, in full, with interest. They're using this money the way it was meant to be used.

Literally everything Lockheed, Raytheon, ULA, and every other company with a building along the Dulles Corridor is government funded. Not a single one would have private funds as SpaceX did to develop capabilities not specifically requested in a government RFP. TLDR: You have no idea how the government works and why SpaceX is different - GTFO.

Trolling on HN? You must be new, but still good luck with that.

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