Elon Musk's empire grew with government support, report says

 

 

It has been revealed that the success of Elon Musk's leading companies, which rose to the status of the world's first trillionaire, was due to massive financial support from the US government. Leading investors and economists point out that the loans, grants and regulatory benefits provided by the government helped Musk's enterprises, such as Tesla and SpaceX, which faced severe financial crises in the early stages, turn around.

Financial analyses show that it was American taxpayer money, rather than big investors on Wall Street, that saved Musk from failure in the startup phase and laid the foundation for the companies' current $1.5 trillion value. The $278 million grant provided by NASA in 2006 to develop the Falcon rocket system was crucial to SpaceX's growth. Then, in 2008, when the company faced a severe funding crisis, a $1.6 billion contract from NASA saved the company from collapse.

During the same period, a low-interest loan of $465 million from the U.S. Department of Energy paved the way for the production of Tesla Model S cars. The report states that Tesla has generated billions in additional revenue just by selling emission credits as part of government policies to reduce carbon emissions, and that without such federal benefits, Musk’s companies would have plunged into bankruptcy several times.