[Manabu-eo]

Most of that $5 billion in the LA times article was not received by Musk's companies at the time, and I'm not sure if they ever received the full amount as it was contingent on reaching several milestones in the span of 20 years.

A big part of those $5 billion was not having to pay sales taxes on possible future Gigafactory production, for example, but that gigafactory never reached the initally planned size AFAIK.

[rtkwe]

The big question then is did the incentives then get clawed back. The pattern I'm familiar with says probably not; usually the company building the factory doesn't lose much of anything they were given when they fail to meet the milestones.

[zie]

First, it's usually structured that you meet X target, you get Y incentive. Second, what doesn't get clawed back is true of all companies though. So it's not unique to Tesla in any way.

Some of it is a loan, I know Tesla had a loan from the govt, they paid it back early if I remember correctly.

Plus all of that is in the past. What would be a huge problem is if the federal govt started throwing grant money at Tesla now, while Musk is running around playing in the govt.

All that said, I think it's a terrible state of affairs we find ourselves in, but I mean we voted Trump into power, what did we expect would happen? Rainbows and kittens?