The above is false. It is a plain, large, rotten lie by Donald Trump.
I wrote post recently on the subsidies that SpaceX and Tesla are supposedly getting. That being one of the major tropes by the Left on Musk. Now Trump magnifies it. Magnifies a Dem talking point. Shame.
For SpaceX, the "subsidies" were payment for services. Just as NASA had paid Boeing, McDonald Douglas and others back in the day. Because of his re-usable rockets, Musk and SpaceX saved the government, saved NASA, billions of dollars. That is, saved money for the taxpayer.
In Tesla's case, it took loans that ware available to every other car manufacturer of EVs. But it's the only one to have repaid the loan, before time. Others have either gone bankrupt (Fisker) or not yet repaid the loans.
This is smear of Elon Musk and his companies by the president of the United States. It's a lie. Either he know it or doesn't care, or doesn't know it, and is hence ignorant.
Clip from my post:
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The slightly more sophisticated attack on Elon is that has relied on government loans and subsidies, and that therefore he's no business genius, just a government slush fund junkie.
Alright, let’s cut through the noise. The Washington Post claimed Elon Musk’s empire—Tesla, SpaceX, and more—owes its success to $38 billion in government subsidies and contracts. The narrative? Musk’s just a welfare king, riding taxpayer dollars to riches. It’s a juicy story, but it’s also a half-truth wrapped in a distortion, designed to paint Musk as a hypocrite while he’s slashing government bloat with DOGE.
Let’s unpack this.
First off, the $38 billion figure sounds massive, and that’s the point. Big numbers grab headlines. But when you dig into the WaPo’s own data, it’s not some golden parachute Musk begged for. This sum, spread over two decades, includes contracts, loans, tax credits, and subsidies to Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp. Most of it—think $22.6 billion—went to SpaceX. Tesla got about $15.7 billion. Neuralink and The Boring Company? Zilch. So, what’s the real story behind these numbers?
Let’s start with SpaceX. The lion’s share of its “government money” comes from contracts with NASA and the Department of Defense. These aren’t handouts; they’re payments for services rendered -- just as NASA has paid Boeing, McDonald Douglas, Lockheed Maritin and IBM in the past.
First off, the $38 billion figure sounds massive, and that’s the point. Big numbers grab headlines. But when you dig into the WaPo’s own data, it’s not some golden parachute Musk begged for. This sum, spread over two decades, includes contracts, loans, tax credits, and subsidies to Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp. Most of it—think $22.6 billion—went to SpaceX. Tesla got about $15.7 billion. Neuralink and The Boring Company? Zilch. So, what’s the real story behind these numbers?
Let’s start with SpaceX. The lion’s share of its “government money” comes from contracts with NASA and the Department of Defense. These aren’t handouts; they’re payments for services rendered -- just as NASA has paid Boeing, McDonald Douglas, Lockheed Maritin and IBM in the past.
SpaceX builds rockets, launches satellites, and ferries astronauts to the International Space Station. NASA’s been SpaceX’s biggest customer, ponying up $14.9 billion for missions that used to cost taxpayers way more when Lockheed Martin or Boeing ran the show. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft slashed launch costs by orders of magnitude.
SpaceX has saved NASA between $20 and $40 billion over 15–20 years. Savings to the government. NOT wasted subsidy to SpaceX.
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ADDED: Sure, sure. I get it. I'm supposed to say "Trump is lying... again!". But so many of his alleged lies were inconsequential. Like about the size of his inauguration crowds. Or about this or that. Many just didn't register with me. I knew them. They didn't matter. They didn't matter, to me, as much as seriously consequential lies by Joe Biden: like the "fine people" hoax; or the lie about Hunter's laptop being "Russian disinformation"; or the lie about not having dealings with Ukraine's Burisma. And so on. But this lie by Trump, it's dirty. Me no like.
