>It’s Time to Stop Spending Taxpayer Dollars on Elon Musk and Cronyism
>It has been widely reported that among SolarCity, Tesla, and the rocket company SpaceX, Elon Musk’s confederacy of interests has gotten at least $4.9 billion in taxpayer support over the past 10 years.
>This is almost half of Musk’s supposed net worth—taken from the pockets of American citizens and put into companies that can survive only by cannibalizing each other, spending without end, and promising that success is always just beyond the horizon and yet never arrives.
where would you prefer the money go? welfare? chicken tendies? shooting niggers?
Ryan Edwards
not into this attention whoring bald fuck's pocket.
Jaxon Evans
are you retarded, he has hair.
Levi Hall
Government spends billions on roads and oil, too, ya ding dong
Ethan Collins
>win launch contracts >omg he is taking gov money!
Brandon Hall
>he has hair jej
Blake Ramirez
>he has hair
Jacob Davis
Not to mention SpaceX performs better (more successful human-rated spacecraft flights) than Boeing, and Boeing gets a bigger subsidy for its spacecrafts than SpaceX
Cooper Long
I would much rather an incredibly small portion of my taxes go to space exploration and electric car development than get globbed into the rest of it for welfare, dysfunctional public school programs, and soldier daycare
Christian Watson
if i iirc correctly, the American Government made profit out of it's investments
Leo Perez
Hair from hair growth surgery is still hair
Hudson Ross
I guarantee that less than 5% of that money makes it into musk's pocket. Do you really think that paying the CEO is the only expense a business has? He's probably like 5% of expendatures, especially in companies that have to employ very high paying jobs like teams of engineers, and develop/manufacture literally brand new and state-of-the-art equipment.
Dominic Evans
Can someone explain the "SpaceX wastes money" meme to me?
If you want to put a 20 ton payload on orbit, SpaceX will do it for $62 million. Or, you could hire the Russians to do it for $90 million, or you could get NASA to do it in-house for $250 million.
If that payload has to go into orbit, isn't using SpaceX *saving* taxpayer money?
Lincoln Mitchell
>Jenny Beth Martin (@JennyBethM) is president and co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.
Kind of says everything it needs to. This guy has no idea what "crony capitalism" means.
Musk isn't some tech business god, but he took good advantage of two industries where entrenched players had some really fucking good opportunities on the table that they ignored for slow, easy return.
>Here’s the question I hear when I’m talking to friends in Georgia who ask me to explain Washington to them: “Why should those guys in Washington take my hard-earned tax dollars and use them to lower the price of an electric car for some movie star in Hollywood?”
When someone gets a tax incentive, they pay less. Someone who buys a Model S is not getting redistributed tax dollars.
To be fair on the government balance sheet the effect is the same, but at the same time, this tea partier seems to basically be saying that we shouldn't be taxing the poor to pay the rich... and on some level he has a good point. Maybe he should be a democrat instead?
Dominic Butler
>gov't subsidizes Detroit to build electric cars and hybrids >they produce the Volt/Bolt family, an electric version of the Focus, and some junky Cadillac >meanwhile Japan continues improving the Prius and makes the Leaf vs. >gov't subsidizes Tesla
Musk returns investments far better than Detroit. I don't really know what to say.
James Torres
>If that payload has to go into orbit, Most of it doesn't is the thing.
Evan Kelly
True. The 1% do provide 40% of the revenue the federal government takes in from income taxes. So maybe Tesla is a rich person perk as a thank you for how much they pay into the system.
But the whole "socialize the losses while privatizing the gains" makes this public-private venture a tad shady. Tesla succeeded, but if you were to give billions to every wannabe-startup to make an electric car, most of them would not have done as well as Tesla did while the public would be left to foot the bill.
Kevin Long
>tfw you realize half of the billions he got from tax dollars goes to the roasties who cucked him
Aiden Anderson
>hair growth surgery it's a transplant, retard.
Evan Butler
>Tesla succeeded, but if you were to give billions to every wannabe-startup to make an electric car, most of them would not have done as well as Tesla did while the public would be left to foot the bill. The tax credits and rebates that Tesla takes advantage of don't have a mechanism by which the public would be left to "foot the bill" in the vast majority of cases.
Lincoln Hill
>implying she doesn't just get stock options
Angel Davis
how many government billions will she get?
Gavin Lee
He's basically an advanced form of welfare nigger.
Lucas Sanders
Not likely, CEOs make shitpiles of money. It's more like 10% bare minimum while the companies that he oversees are all paper pushers with the exception of Tesla and SpaceX, Tesla which has had literally a fraction of a percentage of adoption in the US and hasn't really pushed any new tech, meaning it's a total failure. SpaceX is the only thing that's produce results, which hardly concerns consumers in the first place since we could get satellites into orbit before anyways, there's just a marginal cost-save benefit to reusable rockets.
Matthew Jenkins
>pussy instead of shaving that thing like a real man
Luke Reed
Unfortunately, none. She will have to sit tight with the $30million she got from Johnny Depp. Poor her. $30million isn't enough to buy million dollar jewelry.
Owen Martin
Well he is African-America
Jose Hernandez
So what's with the astroturfing against Musk again?
Matthew Cook
"I like Green"
Samuel Kelly
He's basically annihilating lockheed and boeing in the rocket/aerospace industry, and showing up the entire auto industry as a bunch of chumps, and his electric vehicles, batteries, and solar power could fuck up the oil lobbies and conglomerates.
He's upsetting a bunch of industries all at once, dragging them kicking, crying, and screaming into the modern world where they actually have to compete to survive, rather than living off government handouts.
John Barnes
No. We need clean technology for the future. I'd rather invest in an all electric car company.
Robert Bennett
>20 years from now people will be digging through junkyards looking to build a jury-rigged model 3
I have hope again.
Brody Moore
Oh, no wonder Sup Forums hates them. This board is full of corporate shills.
Thomas Ross
Ironically putting money into furthering technology will do more for the impoverished than welfare ever will
Jaxon Mitchell
Why are they wasting peoples money on throwing shit into the sky?
Xavier Edwards
>4.9 billion for SpaceX That's like what, a quarter of NASA's budget? And they're returning some decent results? I'm not seeing the problem with this.
Sebastian Anderson
How did Elon regrow his hair?
Jordan Foster
A whole new level jealousy
Evan Reyes
This guy just doesn't seem smart to me. I never saw him as some revolutionary leader of new technologies, but he certainly wants to be
Sebastian Cox
Oh look, a Musk shill. Friendly reminder that Tesla has yet to turn a profit and that SpaceX is only able to create failure prone rockets by the graces of NASA. Now go crawl on back to /r/ElonMusk you billionaire worshiping troglodyte.
Cameron Powell
I will admit, the Tesla 3 batteries going only as low as 90% capacity during its lifetime is impressive, no matter how you cut it. I always thought battery was the car's Achilles heel - we've all experienced needing to replace batteries on our laptops. Whether or not electric cars become feasible (there's still a matter of delivering power to these things and where to get that power that doesn't pollute as much as gas powered cars, defeating its purpose) but that's one major hurdle overcome.
Tesla's a giant boom for battery technology, at the very least.
Justin Reed
>Can someone explain the "SpaceX wastes money" meme to me? what is the point in going to mars there's nothing there fucking nothing rocks you're throwing billions of dollars that could be used to do something useful into the sky
Kevin Thomas
>what is the point in going to mars An insurance against species extinction.
Nathan Cook
ah yes, the meme science excuse, singularity soon brothers also we're all living in a simulation find technology that will allow people to live on a planet without breathable atmosphere or arable land without significant support from earth first
Levi Flores
Nothing, and I mean nothing, could ever happen to Earth that would make it worse than the inhospitable hell hole that is Mars. If you really wanted an insurance to protect the human race, you'd drill into Antarctica and build a massive bunker there. A Mars colony is not going to happen within our, nor our children's, lifespan.
Caleb Cruz
>find a way to do something before attempting it
there is absolutely no way to prepare for this before testing the waters and seeing what fucks up and what doesn't. And yes some people will die and many billions will be spent
Aaron Harris
no but plenty of things could happen that could make Earth a shithole graveyard that's only slightly better than Mars, at least for humans. We've been abandoning livable areas to settle on rough, hostile unexplored territory before. It will take many generations but it is essential that we diversify our habitats in the long run
Parker Parker
I too saw this on slashdot, friend :^)
Luke Roberts
>some people will die and many billions will be spent For what purpose? So America can wave its dick around?
Isaiah Wood
finding a way to produce energy, air, food, and water from nothing doesn't require you to go to mars at all. Not that there's any good reason at all to do it in the first place
yeah, hostile unexplored territory on earth full of breathable air and natural resources
Nolan Price
Those batteries in the Tesla last longer than a modern combustion engine Impressive
Wyatt Carter
maybe, yes. In fact I suspect that military considerations will once again be the driving force for space colonization
Jacob Morales
Yes, but those places weren't subject to daily solar radiation bombardments and breathable air and drinkable water. Face it, Mars is a hell hole and there's no point to settle it when we already have a whole host of problems here to work on.
Noah Flores
>finding a way to produce energy, air, food, and water no one is going to Mars without figuring out at least basic sustainability, even if it's been agreed that the first colonists will die there, probably prematurely. Are you opposed to further research into these areas?
Jackson Roberts
>Yes, but those places weren't subject to daily solar radiation bombardments and breathable air and drinkable water. we also didn't have any technology to combat this. We still don't, not fully, but we are making progress. As to your other point, basically everything within any reasonable distance from Earth is a hellhole. We need to be able to at least maintain basic colonies on hellholes if we don't want to stand around holding our dicks waiting for a meteor
Carter Martin
Space colonization is a meme. The simple fact of the matter is that humanity will likely never stay far from Earth. Space is an empty black void that stares at us only with contempt.
Jacob Taylor
>The simple fact of the matter is that humanity will likely never stay far from Earth I suspect that if you replace "Earth" with any geographic location, somebody has said that same sentence thousands of times already. We overcome our obstacles and we expand
Joseph Flores
They are going to mars with massive support from earth. It may be possible to set up a very small self-sustaining colony (although I doubt it) but it won't be able to expand without more support from earth. There is no way with any of our current technology that there could ever be a significant population on mars
Grayson Miller
It's because of people like you that we can't have nice things. Funding musk is probably the best use of govt funding.
Brody Cook
>where would you prefer the money go?
That's not the right question, it's actually a quite silly one.
Should this money be taken from the citizens by force in the first place?
The money doesn't need to "go" anywhere. It can simply stay in the hands of the taxpayers.
Face it, a large part of his success comes from government aid. Not many Americans know this but Norway has aggressively encouraged electric cars for years. There's plenty of Teslas on the roads there. Why? Massive taxes on gasoline and diesel cars and massive subsidies on electric cars. It's almost foolish not to buy one if you live there. Sweden is next to it. It doesn't have surplus of electricity, it's a net importer (Norway is a net exporter). Sweden has therefore not given electric cars any special treatment so there's barely any Teslas there.
I guess this depends on the country. If I have to pay more for my gasoline car so you can buy your electric car cheaper then that's asking some of the public to foot the bill.
Alexander Bennett
Before space, we should habitate the ocean depths first
Cooper Flores
actually when the old world discovered america people went and settled it immediately, sure they said the world was flat, but that was a lie, we know what's on mars and it's fucking nothing, it's a really dumb comparsion. The earth supports life
Jeremiah Anderson
no one is talking about significant populations or instant self-sustainability. It might take a century or more.
Adam Harris
Again, nothing can happen to Earth that will make it more of a hell hole than the nearby hell holes. I don't know if you know this, but extremely large meteors have struck the Earth multiple times, we survived then, why wouldn't we survive now? And a deep self sufficient Antarctic base would be safe from any meteor while not being on a literal death planet.
Zachary Morris
>welfare yes.
Kayden Evans
>people went and settled it immediately the initial American colonists were borderline starving and had to have grain shipments form Britain
Nathaniel Jones
>a century lol yeah, I said figure out the technology to actually live on another planet before you fucking go there. And that is far from a century off, so this is a big waste of money
Connor Watson
>we survived then who's "we"? Some bacteria? Nothing large has hit Earth in the miniscule amount of time humans have been here
Brayden Price
Again, this is a century's worth of effort for something that has no point. There's absolutely no point for a Mars colony other than the idiotic "muh insurance" excuse. Humanity is tough, we've survived Supervolcanos and meteor impacts when we didn't have technology, why can't we do it now?
Aiden Walker
There were people already living in america. One of the biggest cities in the world was in america. The earth supports life. That's the fundamental difference. Compaing this to colonization of the earth is fucking dumb
Alexander Baker
>we don't have it now so don't even bother developing it for the future do you think the tech will somehow be found without investment?
Austin Peterson
>promising that success is always just beyond the horizon and yet never arrives The fuck is this cuck talking about?
Jacob Gomez
I'm comparing colonization to colonization. Nothing in the Universe as far as we know supports life. We need to learn to support it ourselves
Lincoln James
It's a waste of money to go to mars when you dont have the technology to support life on a rock with no resources. Find that technology first before thinking about going to other planets. Going to mars isn't going to help you do that. Or even better, spend that money fixing the problems on earth instead of going into space
Matthew Cook
>Find that technology first for free?
Luke Gray
Hey don't knock the Bolt. it's a good EV the only thing wrong with it is that it's a "compliance" car so they will never make more of them than they absolutely have to to fulfill state mandated EV sales.
Leo Nelson
Yeah take away his subsidy and put the money from it in my welfare checks. Thanks.
Samuel James
Going to Mars isn't going to help, unless you think they're just going to drill into the ground and find water and everyone will live happily ever after
Colton Wood
Wow they made a rocket take off and land again. Truly incredible never done before events going on right here.
>space program, electric cars, solarification, Hyperloop >all massive infrastructure projects that can only be feasibly done by the government, at great cost >amerisharts are too in love with muh individualism and muh free market to appreciate this >Musk is a front man making these all look like private initiatives, when actually they're government projects in all but name
Luke Peterson
you didn't answer. How will we be able to have the technology without investing in it? We don't have anyone on Mars now so discussing the actual mission is irrelevant, we're talking about current investment
Dominic Green
>Welfare no. >Shooting niggers Yes
Gabriel Murphy
>feasibly done throwing blank checks at NASA hoping for military and political superiority is many things but not feasible, at least economically
Cameron Morgan
I'm saying that going to Mars isn't going to help in the development of that technology. If you want to argue about weather we should invest in the technology to make other planets habitable, I would also say no but that's an entirely different argument. They're planning a mission to go to Mars right now so I think it is a relevant discussion to have
Zachary Robinson
Elon Musk is this generation's Howard Hughes. Hopefully he won't go crazy and jerk off to The Conqueror until he dies, though.
So long as he gets shit done, great. Infrastructure projects are good. We need them. We need lots of them. Justify the spending however the fuck you need to. This fucking country's falling apart due to improper use of funds. Elon Musk's shit is some of the only justifiable spending the government does do.
Landon Perez
Once we wean the trillion dollar oil industry off government subsidies and tax exemptions/write-offs then maybe we can look at Elon.
Carson Cooper
>They're planning a mission to go to Mars right now I can only assume that they won't go there until they have enough experts telling them they can achieve basic sustainability
if your argument is that "you won't learn to live on Mars by dropping 5 people with tin cans and a week of oxygen'' then yes I agree but that's just a truisn
Adam Moore
>Hyperloop >Justifiable Spending mfw
Gabriel Taylor
>On the second of these flights the vehicle set its altitude and duration records, 3,140 metres (10,300 ft) and 142 seconds of flight time. Its next flight, on 7 July, proved to be its last. During testing, one of the LOX tanks had been cracked. When a landing strut failed to extend due to a disconnected hydraulic line, the DC-XA fell over and the tank leaked. Normally the structural damage from such a fall would constitute only a setback, but the LOX from the leaking tank fed a fire which severely burned the DC-XA, causing such extensive damage that repairs were impractical
Wow, great tech you've got there. A fucking helium balloon could've gone further.
Parker Williams
Tbh he's cheaper than NASA and has more of a shot getting us to mars sometime in the next millennium.
Aiden Collins
...
Carson Bell
Hyperloop is something straight out of a World's Fair.
Aaron Turner
This is how the American economy works though. Car industry- mostly government subsidies. Agricultural industry- mostly government subsidies Aerospace, military, high technology (IBM), parts of silicon valley, banking, healthcare industry it's all government subsidised. (The healthcare industry IS government subsidies, it's just americans also have to pay for insurance on top of the usual high levels of subsidy. For example, the pharmaceutical industry gets a lot of gov subsidies through the gov funded public research and also directly but you still need to pay for goldberg's diabetes pill)
The entire american system is set up to redirect tax money to the super rich instead of infrastructure.,
Brandon Evans
>basic sustainability yeah and what's that exactly? they're going to try and be as self-sufficient as possible but they're going to be dependent on earth drops for anything that matters. Maybe they'll create a self-sustaining community of 5 or 10, but no significant amount of people and it certainly wouldn't be a living worth living. What's the point? You're not going to come up with the miracle technologies needed for a full scale, expandable colony by doing this. not even close
Justin James
It is feasible economically in the sense it actually happened. Government funding has given us ICBMs and satellites and human spaceflight and landable rockets (as SpaceX is a de facto government programme). Meanwhile private, no-government-subsidy corporations have created absolutely fuck all.
Jaxson Rivera
the point is to see what they haven't thought of (which is impossible on Earth) for when we do have the capability to send more people
Noah Clark
Kys. Musk has succesfully built hyperloops in Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook.
Nathan Nguyen
>when we do have the capability to send more people won't be for centuries. Like I said, the technology isn't even close. Why do this now? It's basically about the sci-fi memes and cold world space race bullshit
Jaxson Hughes
How dumb are you? SpaceX has had successes. Your meme programming you linked didn't even make the Karman line, let alone orbit. NASA didn't even want the programme in the first place, recognised it was a useless cash drain and put it on the scrapheap where it belonged.