Re:Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]
by dzonga on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @10:40AM
(#45901515)
what about gvt loans that tesla got in 2008/9 for clean energy ? close to half a billion. EV subsidies ?
Elon Musk is a tenderprenuer, as we call them in africa.
Re:Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]
by oskarkk on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @02:39PM
(#45905209)
Yeah, I know about that, but I was specifically talking about SpaceX winning contracts by simply being a better option than other competitors, not because of any "friends in the government". Musk wasn't even a billionaire yet, and I doubt he had government friends at the time who did him any personal favors. And in the end the government got what it wanted, Tesla did make a lot of electric cars and repaid the loan much earlier than required. While the current government that Musk helped get elected ended all subsidies for electric cars.
Re:Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]
by dzonga on Wednesday November 12, 2025 @04:24PM
(#45906938)
yeah true, we shouldn't negate how superior spaceX was compared to competitors.
however what made him a billionaire was gvt contracts. I guess all i'm tryna say if you wanna be a fat cat (rich) gvt contracts is a lucrative way to do it.
Re:Warren Buffett's final shareholder letter [pdf]
by inemesitaffia on Thursday November 13, 2025 @02:51PM
(#45919632)
Not like it's free money.
Not true regarding SpaceX, they were just cheaper and better than the competitors. They had to sue the government to even be able to compete against Boeing/Lockheed for military contracts. Who had more friends in the government in the 2010s, SpaceX or Boeing/Lockheed? In 2014, NASA awarded two contracts to develop spacecrafts for transporting astronauts to the ISS (at the time, American astronauts flew to the ISS only on Russian Soyuz). SpaceX received $2.6B (for Dragon), Boeing received $4.2B (for Starliner). Since that time, SpaceX has made 11 operational flights with astronauts to the ISS, while Boeing has made 0 (they're still working on it). It's not friends in the government, it's delivering services faster and for a lower price.