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elindbe2 | 5 years ago

Socializing what risk? What are you even talking about? Musk put his entire fortune from PayPal on the line for Tesla knowing that in all probability it would fail. It turned out well for him but it was still a huge risk he took.

I would argue that the opposite is true. California wants a larger cut of profits from business activity within their borders without any risk on their part, or even having to provide better services than competing states.

discuss

selectodude|5 years ago

I'm curious how many people educated by the University of California work for Elon Musk.

elindbe2|5 years ago

Yeah I wonder how many people work for Musk and pay taxes to California while building EVs that reduce pollution in California.

cryptica|5 years ago

>> Musk put his entire fortune from PayPal on the line for Tesla knowing that in all probability it would fail. It turned out well for him but it was still a huge risk he took.

For sure Elon Musk is a very smart guy and he works really hard and he knows how to deliver amazing products and his PR skills are amazing... That said, we can't deny that he got a lot of support from the US government. Without US government help (e.g. subsidies, grants, carbon credits), he probably would have failed flat on his face like all other geniuses. His ability to secure government support had more to do with luck (history and social connections) than skill.

So as great as Elon Musk is, he did socialize a lot of his risk.

elindbe2|5 years ago

> For sure Elon Musk is a very smart guy and he works really hard and he knows how to deliver amazing products and his PR skills are amazing...

And again, don't ignore the part where he used his entire PayPal fortune to build a company that he thought had a high probability of failure. That's key to this conversation about risk.

The government chose to take on the risk of providing subsidies in order to get the benefits it enjoys today due to Musk's efforts, which is a growing electric vehicle industry. That wasn't Musk's choice to socialize risk, it was elected officials'. And that choice has paid off well for everyone.