Report: Tesla Used Illegal Foreign Labor to Expand CA Plant

First Digital’s Bay Area News Group investigative reporters have accused Tesla Motors of employing foreign contract laborers at $5-per-hour, 10 hours a day, six days a week to expand its government-subsidized California auto plant.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy in loaned Tesla Motors $465 million to open a plant for its all-electric Model S vehicle. Despite the $1 billion traditional automakers were paying to build and equip new auto plants, Tesla acquired the bankrupt General Motors “New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.” plant in Fremont California for $42 million.

In 2010, the company received another $20 million worth of saleable California corporate income tax credits to acquire the plant’s factory presses and other machinery for $17 million, and buy other equipment at a “fraction” of the original cost.

Although Tesla Motors has been unprofitable since opening the Fremont plant, it has collected $517 million selling government-mandated environmental credits to competing automakers and others. The cash has been used to fund operating losses, build out sales distribution, and add to the manufacturing facility.

Taxpayers are on the hook for more than $2.2 billion in expected costs from the federal government’s energy loan guarantee programs, according to a new audit Monday that suggests the controversial projects may not pay for themselves, as officials had promised.

"Nearly $1 billion in loans have already defaulted under the Energy Department program, which included the infamous Solyndra stimulus project and dozens of other green technology programs the Obama administration has approved, totaling nearly about $30 billion in taxpayer backing, the Government Accountability Office reported in its audit." Washington Times

Elon Musk Gets Government Loans, Buys $17 Million House

by Mike Flynn 15 Jan 2013

We live in the gilded age of crony capitalism. If you have any doubt about that fact look no further than Elon Musk’s purchase of a $17 million mansion in Bel Air, California.

Who is Elon Musk?

He struck it rich with the invention of PayPal. Lately, though, he has cashed in on the Obama “green energy” and government giveaway bonanza. He plays the game well.

Musk has an army of lobbyists on payroll to help lift taxpayer money to help his companies Tesla Motors, SpaceX and SolarCity.

Musk is, of course, a big donor to Obama, having given $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund and another $30,400 to the Democratic National Committee.

SolarCity spent $535,000 in 2009 and 2010 to lobby Congress and the Department of Energy on climate legislation, the Recovery Act, “green workforce training and development,” and provisions in various legislation “relevant to solar development,” according to The National Legal and Policy Center. SolarCity also received a $344 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy and $66 million from additional DOE giveaway programs.

Thanks to the support of the taxpayers, Musk was able to roll an IPO out for Solar City earning him an estimated half a billion dollars. Not a bad investment for Musk. Poor investment for taxpayers.

Musk’s electronic car company Tesla received a loan guarantee for $465 million from the DOE. When Tesla went public, Musk pocketed nearly $1 billion on his $35 million investment.

Excerpt:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2013/01/15/elon-musk-poster-child-of-obama-gilded-age/

... I hate Tesla as much as the next free market conservative (for building his business on Government subsidies and "carbon credits")

Aren't you directing your ire at the wrong entity? If you have a bunch of economic idiots making laws that affect the market, do you get mad at the person who takes advantage of the stupid law, or the people who passed the law? Most tax laws distort the allocation of resources...except a Flat Tax (not a Fair Tax). If you had a Flat Tax with no exceptions and no deductions, the allocative effects of the tax are neutral. Indeed, you could file your tax return on a post card.

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