Companies Started by Famed ‘Entrepreneur’ Elon Musk Have Never Made A Penny, He Got Rich Off Your Tax Dollars

02 Jun, 2015 by Warner Todd Huston

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Elon Musk has made himself famous as the modern age Thomas Edison. But now we find out that, unlike with Edison’s massive economic success, not a single company started by Musk nor any product there from have been financially successful. The truth is he hasn’t made a penny and the way he’s become a billionaire “inventor” is to have his “business” empire underwritten by hundreds of millions in tax subsidies.

That’s right, America, you didn’t make Elon Musk a success because you bought his products, you made him rich because he steals away your tax dollars for his failed businesses.

He’s been heralded as one of the great geniuses of our time, a man whose work has kickstarted everything from electric vehicles to solar energy and private space travel. But does Elon Musk have an addiction to government subsidies?

That’s the thrust of an investigative story in the Los Angeles Times this weekend. The Times concludes that based on the data they obtained, SpaceX, Tesla Motors and Solar City have benefitted from a combined $4.9 billion in government support. That’s a lot.

The taxpayer funds for Musk’s various endeavors come at the federal and state levels. Perhaps the most well-known beneficiary of government help is Tesla, which received $465 million in loans under the government’s $8.4 billion Advanced Vehicle Technology Manufacturing program. Tesla has since repaid those loans, and early, while two of the other five loan recipients failed entirely.

But ATVM is only one part of the story.

…Then there’s SpaceX, which got $20 million in subsidies from Texas to build a facility there. The Tesla Gigafactory is being built near Reno, Nevada with aid from $1.3 billion in tax incentives. There’s also the $517 million Tesla has collected selling zero emission vehicle credits to other automakers. Still, Tesla and SpaceX continue to report net losses.

He’s actually a total failure as a businessman. But he is wildly successful at getting government money.

Warner Todd Huston

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, BigJournalsim.com and all Breitbart News' other sites, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, and many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs across the country to discuss his opinion editorials and current events as well as appearing on TV networks such as CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and various Chicago-based news programs. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the book "Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture" which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston and follow him on Twitter, on Google Plus , and Facebook.