California subsidized every Tesla sold. I'm not complaining about it but it should be on record that California helped to give Tesla a boost. It was definitely the right move.

I can't think of another state in this country where Tesla would have thrived nearly as well as California. Do you think Tesla would have done well in Texas back in 2003? All those oil guzzlers would have laughed Elon Musk out of the state.

Technically that was an "electric car" subsidy, not a Tesla subsidy. But I am pretty sure the lion share of those 200,000 cars were Teslas judging by whose driving in the carpool lane with single occupancy, so it's probably fair to say it was a de facto Tesla subsidy. But do we really blame Tesla for other manufacturers not being able to take advantage? That seems a bit unfair too.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-stock-price-california...

In what way did California subsidize them? The federal tax credit is for all EV and has not applied to Tesla in 2 years.

> All those oil guzzlers would have laughed Elon Musk out of the state.

We are talking about global production not sure how that matters if people in Texas didn't like them.

I'm just asking. I didn't know Tesla was getting subsidies from CA on top of the federal stuff.

Maybe it is dumb to subsidize entrepreneurs without guarantee they will be paying taxes after.

Yeah, a bit of a free rider problem where California has now paid to bootstrap the US electric car industry, to the whole country's benefit, and won't get quite the tax payment rewards for their investment that they are due. Just lots of smug scorn from Elon and the commenters here.

They'll still get sales taxes, corp taxes, and income taxes from people working at those companies... it's not a "free rider" problem - CA made an investment and it's paying off...