elon musk got hundreds of millions of dollars from uncle sugar. don’t tell me he’s the same cloth that others are. if he didn’t get his freaking bailout by all of us, they were bankrupt and about 60 million in the hole.
The fast-growing electric car company has repaid the entire $465 million loan it received from the U.S. Department of Energy, in a vindication for company co-founder Elon Musk, the billionaire mogul and rocket-ship enthusiast. The loan repayment, made nine years ahead of schedule, was completed Wednesday when Tesla wired $451.8 million to the federal government.
Tesla’s loan was part of the government’s 2010 Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, a $25 billion fund authorized by Congress, signed by President George W. Bush, and awarded under President Obama. The loan program, which was separate from the U.S. auto bailouts to GM and Chrysler under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), was designed to get fuel-efficient vehicles to consumers faster.
The one from a program authorized by G. W. Bush?
The loan they paid back 9 years early?
It wasn't a TARP bailout. It was definitely government venture capital, but then, the government (Congress) has decided we need to get off Arab oil somehow, anyhow. So they did this program.
Excuse me, but I've been on aerospace programs of exceedingly questionable value where we pissed away a Billion (with a capitol "B") and then cancelled the program without so much as a whimper from the public.
More then one of them, in fact.
$465 million is chump change to the government. A roundoff error. And it wasn't a sunk cost, it was a loan...now paid off.
Would you have refused it?
If so, how would you have explained it to your Venture Capitalists, your Board, your Investors?
"I turned down a damn near free loan because my conscience wouldn't let me take it, I don't believe in government funding".
Good Luck with that Bunky. Been there done that. The VC's would walk you out of your own company doors that day, they wouldn't wait for tomorrow.