"Raining money on fools"? Captain Repellent Obliviousness has a "rude awakening inbound," courtesy of The Guardian:
It’s tough talk from a man said to be worth north of $218bn, more than
anyone in the world. And it conveniently overlooks the considerable
handouts Musk himself took in the process of growing his net worth after
plunking down $6.5m for a majority stake in Tesla in 2004. How did Musk
weather the economic storms and rude awakenings thereafter?
“This is actually a good thing,” Musk said in response to a question from a Twitter user. “It has been raining money on fools for too long. Some bankruptcies need to happen.
“Also,”
he continued, “all the Covid stay-at-home stuff has tricked people into
thinking that you don’t actually need to work hard. Rude awakening
inbound!”
It’s tough talk from a man said to
be worth north of $218bn, more than anyone in the world. And it
conveniently overlooks the considerable handouts Musk himself took in
the process of growing his net worth after plunking down $6.5m for a
majority stake in Tesla in 2004. How did Musk weather the economic
storms and rude awakenings thereafter?
In
2008, the company rolled out its only product – a Lotus Elise knockoff
called the Roadster. At a starting price of around $80,000, the coupe
wasn’t exactly priced to move; 2,450 global sales made Musk’s vision of
mass-producing electric cars look like a pipe dream. But a year later,
Tesla received a $465m loan as part of a federal stimulus package –
money that essentially paid for the development and manufacture of the
groundbreaking Model S.
Musk, who’s quick to
note that Tesla paid that loan back early, moves those cars with help
from considerable tax breaks for electric vehicles. And he further takes
advantage of his cars’ absence of tailpipe emissionsby
reselling his cache of carbon credits to high-carbon emitting rivals
under pressure to clean up – at least $517m since 2015. There’s a reason
why Bill Ackerman and other short-sellers bet big on Tesla to fail. The
company would probably be as dead as Nikola Tesla himself if it hadn’t
been for the government “raining money on fools”.
Musk
also claimed on Twitter that a recession would be good because
“companies that are inherently negative cash flow (ie value destroyers)
need to die, so that they stop consuming resources”. From 2010 to 2018,
Tesla raised $20bn in capital while producing a negative cash flow of
$9bn; 2021 was the company’s first full year of profitability.
It
isn’t just Washington that has been generous. Tesla also benefits from
state tax income tax breaks for green vehicles and routinely helps
itself to corporate subsidies. Since last August the company has
received roughly $64m in incentives to move to Austin, Texas, and build
Giga Texas – the spanking new factory that’s expected to produce another
gonzo Musk idea, the Tesla Cybertruck.
Musk’s other companies have benefited from
corporate welfare schemes too. In 2015, the LA Times reckoned Musk’s
companies had benefited from almost $5bn in government support. That
includes SpaceX, which just landed a $2.89bn contract with Nasa and a
$653m air force contract, both in 2021; and SolarCity, which capitalised
on $1.5bn in government aid and haemorrhaged cash too before the solar
energy company was absorbed into Tesla –which itself accepted payroll
benefits from Donald Trump’s $600bn pandemic stimulus package.
Musk
can scold work-from-homers all he wants. But when it comes to
benefiting from handouts and loans, few have been rained on more than
him.
Perhaps Musk, who has fed and continues to feed gluttonously at the public trough, is unaware (charitably) or unconcerned (more likely) about the devastating effects that a global recession would have on millions upon millions of lives already affected by two years of COVID- related economic strains. As for those lazy work- from- home people, they should learn from Musk to use other people's money and tax breaks to enrich yourself so you can work hard tweeting repellent, oblivious shit like he does all day, every day.
