Originally Posted By: Robenstein
Musk would have never gotten his businesses off the ground if it was not for Uncle Sam giving him nearly 5 billion in corporate welfare.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
This LATimes story is totally bunk. Did you actually read the article and analyze each of the incentives they claimed Musk received ?
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"Government support is a theme of all three of these companies, and without it none of them would be around," said Mark Spiegel, a hedge fund manager for Stanphyl Capital Partners who is
shorting Tesla's stock, a bet that pays off if Tesla shares fall.
Did you see the bias of this guy ? Who would benefit if Tesla stock falls.
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New York state is spending $750 million to build a solar panel factory in Buffalo for SolarCity. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company will lease the plant for $1 a year. It will not pay property taxes for a decade, which would otherwise total an estimated $260 million.
The federal government also provides grants or tax credits to cover 30% of the cost of solar installations. SolarCity reported receiving $497.5 million in direct grants from the Treasury Department.
Federal and states promote renewable energies, they give incentives to any and all reputable solar, wind ... companies. Not just SolarCity.
If New York state is so stupid so be it.
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Nevada has agreed to provide Tesla with $1.3 billion in incentives to help build a massive battery factory near Reno.
Tesla's Gigafactory didn't get more incentive than any other company with such large factory. It is standard of any new factory in any state, they all receive tax incentive for 10-20 years. Tesla's Gigafactory is not an exception.
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The Palo Alto company has also
collected more than $517 million from competing automakers by selling environmental credits. In a regulatory system pioneered by California and adopted by nine other states, automakers must buy the credits if they fail to sell enough zero-emissions cars to meet mandates. The tally also includes some federal environmental credits.
Other automakers paid Tesla to comply with regulations of California and 9 other states. This $517 million isn't any government's money.
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Tesla buyers also get a $7,500 federal income tax credit and a $2,500 rebate from the state of California. The federal government has capped the $7,500 credit at a total of 200,000 vehicles per manufacturer; Tesla is about a quarter of the way to that limit. In all, Tesla buyers have qualified for an estimated $284 million in federal tax incentives and collected more than $38 million in California rebates.
Tesla buyers collected a total of $322 million and this author assign this amount to Tesla and Elon Musk.
An EV buyer of any make would receive similar credit, even if they buy from German or Japanese or Korean automakers.
So it is okay with you if someone buys a BMW i3 or Fiat 500e or Nissan Leaf to receive credit(s) from US governments but not if he/she buy a Tesla ? Even when Tesla is made in USA while other EV's are from foreign companies and made oversea.
One last thing, Tesla received about $500 million loan from Federal government few years ago, they paid it all back plus interest 2 years ago. The Federal government made some small profit with Tesla loan.
Federal government bailed out GM with a tune of $50 billion in 2008, they got back $38 billion after sold all GM stocks couple years ago for a lost of $12 billion.
Why don't you say anything about $12 billion lost in GM case and keep saying some small changes with Elon Musk and his 3 companies ?
Federal government may helped Space-X some years ago, but they reap the benefit now with much lower rocket launch cost that Space-X is charging.
Do some research about Space-X you will find out some interesting facts about it and ULA(United Launch Alliance) a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Hint, who got paid $1 billion (B not M) a year even without launching any rocket ?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2495415-...launch-monopoly