Comment by ivewonyoung
4 days ago
Why is everyone assuming SpaceX is getting paid for this by the government? The article doesn't even say that SpaceX is getting paid by the govt for it, they just put it in the headline and use weasel words in the story to make people come up with assumptions that may not be true.
The govt can be paying those folks directly or Musk himself can be paying them like he did for some DOGE team members.
Great. Lets just have "someone" do "something" while they "might" get paid by "someone".
Sounds like the ideal government...
But isn't SpaceX money coming mostly from the government anyway? So still your pockets getting emptied, only over two extra hoops which each take their share as well. All this to bring the magic solution called software engineering because we all know how software consultants always save the business.
No it isn't. Most of their revenue comes from starlink and rocket launch services that they sell in open markets.
Significant improvement in cost and capabilities over competition that enabled SpaceX to capture so much of the market has massively driven prices down and certainly saved taxpayers a lot of money for the services.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competitio...
SpaceX does get government grants of course like most companies. It's by far not most of their revenue though, and generally competitively available and tied to particular goals. Investing and supporting in high tech, high value industries like this is often a good thing and returns more than cost to the country, as it certainly has with SpaceX. So it's the opposite of pockets getting emptied.
Not to mention the national security advantage of being able to service the ISS and to launch humans into space without help from adversarial regimes.
Because getting more money and power are what Elon is after and embedding his companies in the government is an effective way to do that.
Tesla stock roughly doubled following the election! That's obviously not because Trump is going to be a champion for electric vehicles and green energy, he couldn't be more hostile to them. Investors know that Elon is going to suck insane amounts of money out of the government with his new level of access and most of that will flow through his companies.
Like how, for example? Serious question.
If SpaceX has the best, most economical, and safest route to space, why would Nasa and DoD not use them? Who else is there? Blue Origin's not there yet; others are in the works but not there yet. SpaceX is proven; it does a good job and has brought manned space flight back to the U.S. Has nothing to do with whether Musk & his team are close to Trump or not.
More to the point, the DoGE audits are projected to save the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars, which should significantly reduce the deficit which is currently projected at two trillion dollars.
Even if we assume the worst, most absurd and political stance that Musk is in it for the money and influence, saving $500 billion or more is still worth it. And, in reality, Musk's political activity is costing Tesla a lot of sales; Tesla's sales numbers are in decline, actually.
>More to the point, the DoGE audits are projected to save the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars, which should significantly reduce the deficit which is currently projected at two trillion dollars.
Oh come the fuck on. Projected by whom? If they are looking to reduce the deficit, why are they floating tax breaks that will cost the country billions?
Have some skepticism, will you?
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