Comment by ceejayoz
1 month ago
> You and I, and everyone else, knows what "Musk got subsidies" means to the mentally reddited of the world…
That he should be grateful for the taxpayers support? That government interventions can, at times, be highly successful?
Do you base every conversation on "what would the dumbest Redditor think"?
>Do you base every conversation on "what would the dumbest Redditor think"?
Sadly, the mentally reddited are too numerous and widespread—including on HN—to always blightely ignore.
And in retaliation, you pretend the meaning of "subsidy" is some deep unknowable thing instead of a pretty clear dictionary definition for a while?
No, I'm saying that when the Post puts out an article shouting about "$38 billion" going to Musk, many, many people are going to take away from that that "Musk received $38 billion in grants, gifts, and otherwise free money from taxpayers". What was your purpose in insta-citing that article, as opposed to pointing to the one NASA program for funding promising booster designs, complete with strict standards at various milestones, that helped fund (in addition to $100 million, essentially every cent of Musk's PayPal fortune) resulted in the Falcon 1 two decades ago?
I'll answer my own rhetorical question. Your implication is that every single thing Musk and Musk's companies are doing today—Dragon, Crew Dragon, Falcon 9, Starship, xAI, Tesla, etc., etc.—are "subsidized"—again, with the "sacks of free money with dollar signs painted on them" connotation—because of that Falcon 1 program two decades ago. If believing that makes you feel better about the accomplishments of someone you admit to greatly disliking, congratulations.
And before you deny doing so, you are the one who wrote
>> Starlink didn't get any subsidies.
>If you don't count the launcher it rides on, and the company that owns both.
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