4,900,000,000$ To Tesla, Space X, Solar City- Time to Stop Spending Taxpayer $$ on Musk's Cronyism

Solar city, Tesla and Space X has received 4,900,00,000$ in the last 10 years.

Elon Musk's solar city is one of 7 companies that are under scrutiny for wasting billion of tax payers money.

Solar city is run by Musk's cousin's and has never turned a profit, even with a factory built in New York and the Solar city being charge 1$ rent per year.

instead of solar city going bust, tesla motors may buy it.

No wonder Elon is always smiley, all those sweet tax $$$.

At what point do we let the genius that is Elon Musk sink or swim?

From Enron to Bernie Madoff, at the end of every great American financial scandal, the totality of the perpetrators’ greed seems to be matched only by the public’s incredulity at how such a thing could be allowed to happen.

And thanks to Elon Musk, there’s a good chance we may all be asking this question again soon.

The Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have launched a probe into tax incentives paid to solar companies, according to The Wall Street Journal. The committee probes, led by their respective Republican chairmen, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas and Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, have found an appropriate and disturbing target to begin this work.

SolarCity, a solar installation company set to be purchased by Tesla Motors Inc., is one of the seven companies named in the initial investigation.

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Already grossly subsidized, Musk’s SolarCity has become an albatross of waste, fraud, and abuse of tax payer dollars. As legitimate earnings and cash become even scarcer for SolarCity, its entanglement in the Tesla empire suggests that a drastic reckoning not only is imminent, but in fact emboldening Musk to become more outlandish and reckless.

Notably, SolarCity is run by Musk’s cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive. During his chairmanship at SolarCity, Musk’s family enterprise has taken in billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies from both the federal and local governments. But the subsidies and sweetheart deals were not enough, as losses and missed projections continued to mount.

Ultimately, rather than endure the embarrassment of collapse and further damage to the public image of Musk and Tesla, the cousins conspired to have Tesla simply purchase SolarCity this year. The conditions of the deal screamed foul play.

To say nothing of what sense it might make for an automaker to purchase a solar installation company, Tesla stockholders were being forced to absorb a failing, cash-burning company and pay top dollar to do so.

While cost cutting and corporate restructuring should have been the priority for a company swimming in debt and burning through available cash, SolarCity in fact has been doubling down on the failed model of taxpayer support. The desperate thirst for handouts has manifested itself in some of the murkiest political waters imaginable.

Thanks to Musk’s cozy relationship with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, the state has granted at least $750 million of its taxpayers’ money to SolarCity, building the company a factory and charging it only $1 per year in rent.

It would be hard to imagine such an operation would not be lucrative for its shareholders. And yet somehow, SolarCity never has made a profit.

It’s not just in New York. In this year’s race for Arizona Corporation Commission, the state’s public utilities overseers, only one outside group funneled cash into the contest.

All of the $3 million donated by that group, Energy Choice for America, came from SolarCity. The beneficiaries are candidates who have signaled their willingness to be part of the “green machine” that greases the skids for lucrative government subsidies.

Burning through taxpayer dollars, buying elections, and expanding a network of crony capitalism has become so inherent to the SolarCity model that $3 million to a public commissioner’s race, brazen though it may be, is only a drop in the bucket for Musk and SolarCity.

In 2013 alone, SolarCity received $127.4 million in federal grants. The following year, in which it received only $342,000 from the same stimulus package, total revenue was just $176 million and the company posted a net loss of $375 million.

Despite an expansion of operations and claims to be the leader in the industry, SolarCity never has been able to survive without serious help from government subsidies and grants. The failure to responsibly turn taxpayer dollars into a profitable renewable energy provider has led to SolarCity’s collapse into the welcoming arms of Tesla.

And with Tesla, SolarCity in fact will be right at home, compounding a disastrous shell game that Elon Musk is playing with government resources.

It has been widely reported that among SolarCity, Tesla, and the rocket company SpaceX, Elon Musk’s confederacy of interests has gotten at least $4.9 billion in taxpayer support over the past 10 years.

This is almost half of Musk’s supposed net worth—taken from the pockets of American citizens and put into companies that can survive only by cannibalizing each other, spending without end, and promising that success is always just beyond the horizon and yet never arrives.

The American people are being taken on a ride by SolarCity, Tesla, and Musk. The ride is fueled by a cult of personality in Musk. And it costs billions of taxpayer dollars as he promises us not only the moon, but to harness the power of the sun and send us all to Mars.

In the cases of Enron and Bernie Madoff, in the end the cheated victims wished to have woken up sooner to the hubris that enabled such a downfall—or that at least regulators had pulled their heads out of the sand before the full impact of the collapse was realized.

We’ve seen this story before and we know how it ends.

The congressional investigations underway not only are necessary but a signal that more must be done, and soon. We may not be able to help Elon Musk stop himself from failing again, but we certainly shouldn’t be the ones to pay for it.

It’s past time for the American people to stand up to Musk and demand that our legislators and other elected officials bring him back to earth before spending one more dollar of our money. He’s wasted enough of it already.

dailysignal.com...

That is quite a bit of money.
Who's butt do you have to kiss to get that kind of govt backing?

Elon. Not Elton.

I see this as a replacement for NASA. It's one place I don't mind my tax money going.

a reply to: butcherguy
Careful, from what we have learned in Wikileaks, kissing of butt is very tame to get $$$$.

That is quite a bit of money. Who's butt do you have to kiss to get that kind of govt backing?

a reply to: seasonal

Sure its a bundle, but it seems like nobody wastes money more than goverment agencies. Even a floundering private business is run much more efficiently.

I feel like solar energy is bound to be difficult to get off the ground with the fossil fuel industry still aggressively lobbying to be the one and only source of heat and electricity as people become more wary of nuclear.

Why is it that all buildings arent fit with solar panels? Lots of cheap energy just going to waste.

Well Musk does have a vision and you can see progress for the bucks that are being spent , It was not long ago that electric cars were a joke noW everyone is getting in on the act ditto rockets coming back to land .

When you consider some of those politicians spend nearly a Billion trying to be president and during the Iraq war America had 12 billion in cash in a warehouse in Lebanon that it did not know about


CARRY ON ELON

a reply to: 4003fireglo

Uh, taxpayer$ going to a private company with very little to show for it?

I kinda think that there has to be some free market principles applied so we don't spend $500,000,000 a year to produce some real shi!!Y cars that few can afford but people seem to get glassy eyed over.

And if we looked, there are a lot of other things that kind of $ could push to make a bigger difference in our lives.

Thanks for the heads up on Elon.

I see this as a replacement for NASA. It's one place I don't mind my tax money going.

The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed.

The Heritage Foundation being supported by the fossil fuel industry (the biggest supporters being the Koch brothers) which has been subsidized to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and views any alternate energy endeavors to be a threat against their energy monopoly.

Just think of what could have been done with that much money. There could have been a lot of bucks available for utility companies to put up solar grids or some turbins. That is a lot of money. I am shocked that they kept dumping all that money into that venture. There must be a lot of big salaries and overpayment for supplies back with consequential kickbacks to the ones running it.

The only thing genius about Elon Musk is taking advantage of available money for what people think are important causes and making people feel guilty about not supporting his vision. Or maybe SolarCity was planned to fail from the get go. Pocket all the cash buy it make it part of Tesla group or whatever it's called and magically profits start happening afterwards. Maybe all that crap he spews is the real reason for global warming. Hey if you can blame cow poop...

a reply to: Urantia1111

Except Elon's businesses.

Sure its a bundle, but it seems like nobody wastes money more than goverment agencies. Even a floundering private business is run much more efficiently.

or that at least regulators had pulled their heads out of the sand before the full impact of the collapse was realized.

Government regulators? Are we now suggesting that we rely upon government regulations to curb the excesses of crony capitalism? In the 1980s the cry went out to de-regulate big businesses and Reagan did. The thinking was that regulation did not allow capitalism to reach it's full potential.

People railed against all the government R+D programs and such and decisions were made to turn it over to private capital. That capitalism itself would regulate a corporations success or failure. The distrust of government run scientific enterprise was cause to turn much of that enterprise over to the private sector.
Anyone at the time who paid attention to this switch-over from public to private knew that all that government money that had once been the backbone of NASA and other government scientific facilities would be the foundation of any private enterprise that sought to suck up those tax payers dollars and here we seem to have just one of a large number of examples.

It's hard to tell what's worse. Governments regulations on itself, or governments regulations on private enterprise.

a reply to: stonerwilliam

My thought are there are lots of people with vision, maybe it's time to cut this guy loose to sink or swim.


Or maybe Elon should use his OWN $$$$$$ like normal business.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Very good point, it is difficult to get real news when huge corps or the wealthy write it.

a reply to: rickymouse
How about thorium reactors to make clean safe cheap energy?

Just think of what could have been done with that much money. There could have been a lot of bucks available for utility companies to put up solar grids or some turbins. That is a lot of money. I am shocked that they kept dumping all that money into that venture. There must be a lot of big salaries and overpayment for supplies back with consequential kickbacks to the ones running it.

better than NASA

Jesus Christ...

Obama gutted NASA for what??

This is a disgrace...

We walked on the moon almost 50 years ago....this is absolute idiocy..

Let's hope Trump reinvests in NASA who actually can produce results...and see us return to the moon and mars after that...

Where have you gone, Werner Von Braun?

-Chris

Even though he has a bond villain name I tip my hat to him for doing what he does.
I wish our governments gave him more.

Elon Musk is a liar, a con artist and a shameless self promoter. Lots of flashy publicity stunts using other people's work he presents as his own.

He should be imprisoned.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Agree!

I must admit that in spite of your Hillary cheerleading the last several months, your contributions since the election have been interesting and of good quality.

Respect 👍