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It has always been the allure of imagination and ambition, and maybe a little bit of science fiction, if we’re being honest, of the space scientists and astronauts to one day go to Mars. Since President Obama had redirected NASA’s mission a little more towards Muslim outreach, and away from space exploration, the private sector began imagining and leaping into action. And Elon Musk is apparently the entrepreneurial magician with the vision, which is apparently being revised, to get even ordinary people to Mars, while making money in the process.
Mr. Musk is the media darling of the private space industry and the Left. He’s the technological entrepreneur who used his entrepreneurial magic to build PayPal, when it was a success story. The left-wing media loves Mr. Musk because they see him as the capitalistic proof that people will buy their radical environmentalism. And why not? He’s built a successful battery-powered car company, a solar energy company, and his private space company is daring to reach for the stars (in this case, Mars).
There’s only one problem. The magic of Musk’s entrepreneurial spirit comes with a rather large multi-billion dollar price tag, at the expense of the American taxpayer, while he takes advantage of crony capitalism and gets rich off the taxpayer dime. Don’t believe me? As of a 2015 article in the Los Angeles Times, the American taxpayer backs Mr. Musk’s private empire “from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support.” In fairness to Mr. Musk, he has requested the federal government end the subsidies to Tesla Motors because it puts them at a disadvantage to other automakers.
The Fun and the Realities
It’s fun to geek out over space exploration. And dream of going to places of the universe where no man has gone before. Discovering life on other planets, which I’m a bona fide skeptic, but it’s still fun to apply science fiction to real life. As long as we realize that it’s fiction, and that we promptly return to reality and make actual scientific discoveries. For instance, potentially using the information we learn in space that could help us cure certain diseases of today that were thought of as incurable just five years ago.
And as someone who is a supporter of missile defense on land, sea, and space, the possibilities of being able to defend our nation and allies from space against our enemies are intriguing. If President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (or Star Wars, used primarily as a political slur) were possible, we could potentially be one-step closer to achieving Reagan’s ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament.
Perspectives
Does Elon Musk need a California bailout, or is he worth $21 billion?
Without government assistance, it seems Tesla can’t make money, because they can’t sell cars at the price they actually have to collect to stay in business. So California is going to tax the working class to pay for Elon Musk to add to his fortune.
And add to his fortune he has.
Space News reported Friday that Musk is now worth $5 billion more after SpaceX (his other company) raised $351 million in a funding round, bringing that company’s value to over $21 billion (coincidentally, about the same as Musk’s personal net worth).
SpaceX gets its money from–you guessed it–taxpayers. A $4.2 billion contract with NASA in 2014 drives revenue. SpaceX essentially gets nothing from private companies, other than investment dollars. They are all betting on more money from Uncle Sugar.
Musk himself has gotten rich off the Government Dodo.
Why is NASA Covering Up Elon Musk’s Mistakes? | Mises Wire
This glaring hypocrisy between the handling of the Orbital and the SpaceX cases has not gone unnoticed. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology wrote a letter just after the SpaceX accident to NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden, expressing his belief that this “discrepancy … raises questions about not only the equity and fairness of NASA’s process for initiating independent accident investigations, but also the fidelity of the investigations themselves.”
Reactions
BFR will take you anywhere on Earth in less than 60 mins https://t.co/HWt9BZ1FI9
— Buff Mage (@elonmusk) September 29, 2017
Part 2 https://t.co/8Fvu57muhM
— Buff Mage (@elonmusk) September 29, 2017
https://twitter.com/steubencapital/status/913775091611312128
https://twitter.com/haipai22/status/913772075378184193
https://twitter.com/geggysants/status/913770521107554304
Final Thoughts
The moral of the story is Elon Musk isn’t the grand wizard of technological entrepreneurship applied to radical environmental leftism. What he does know how to do is take a big vision and risk it all by borrowing millions, and getting the federal government to front him billions of taxpayer money to build his business empire.
He doesn’t offer a new product or service to the free exchange of the market. He’s a bona fide crony capitalist who knows how to use debt and taxpayer money to manipulate his way into multi-million dollar wealth. Elon Musk is the very fat cat that gets in bed with the government and uses taxpayer money to fund his enterprises that democratic socialists love to condemn, but are created by their own policies of price controls and subsidies assisting their most favored industries.
You’re welcome, Elon! Signed, the American taxpayer.
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