He built his companies on 5 billion in subsidies.
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He put his own money that he made from Paypal into SpaceX, which is the company we’re discussing on this thread.
His own money.
If you had $5 billion from subsidies you would have lots of your own money, too.
That is the point.
Bezos did it without government (taxpayer) subsidies. He started Amazon (a private company with no taxpayer subsidies) and now funds his own space company.
Musk got rich on taxpayer subsidies, then used his “own” money from that and funded Spacex.
There’s a big difference. But don’t look behind the curtain!
Money is fungible. What you get somewhere (his own sources or taxpayer funded) is used elsewhere, including Spacex.
Can you dispute the five billion in subsidies? Can you say he received no subsidies at all?
No, no one can.
He is on the taxpayer teat for a good portion of his wealth. If he was so successful at paypal why did he need the $5 billion?