Elon Musk Bailed Out of $6bn Google Takeover To Save Tesla From 2013 Bankruptcy 118
An anonymous reader sends word that Elon Musk almost sold Tesla to Google in 2013 when the company was close to bankruptcy. "Elon Musk had a deal to sell his electric car company Tesla, to Google for $6bn (£4bn) when it was heading for bankruptcy with just two weeks' worth of cash left in the bank. During the first week of March 2013, Musk spoke to his friend Larry Page, chief executive of Google, about the search giant buying his car company, which at the time was suffering from falling sales amid technical problems with the few Model S luxury sedan cars it had delivered. Ashlee Vance, author of upcoming book Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, claims in an extra for Bloomberg two people 'with direct knowledge of the deal' said Musk and Page agreed to the buyout and shook on a price of around $6bn. This was plus promises from Google to invest $5bn for factory expansion and to not break Tesla up or close it down."
Good for him and the world. (Score:5, Interesting)
More competition is better. We know google is working on their own car - but the Tesla is here today and doing better than anyone ever thought. No wonder the guy can do rocket science.
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Google isn't working on a car. They're working on an autonomous driving system that would be added to someone else's car.
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Google has been focused on an Autonomous system. That is true. But, so far, no car maker has expressed an interest in it.
As such, there is no reason to believe that they will not consider building their own cars. And if they were to do so, I am guessing that they will Work with Tesla to make their own.
Google is not going to make cars (Score:5, Informative)
As such, there is no reason to believe that they will not consider building their own cars. And if they were to do so, I am guessing that they will Work with Tesla to make their own.
There is a very good reason to believe they will not consider building their own cars. The reason is economics. Cars are a generally low margin business with huge capital requirements. The engineering and manufacturing are something Google has absolutely no expertise or advantage in. A VERY profitable large car manufacturer has profit margins around 8-10% (see Porsche or Toyota) and most are somewhere between 0-5% most of the time. Google right now has profit margins around 25%. If they got into the car business in any sort of meaningful way their profit margins would drop like a rock along with their share price. They would be jumping into a cutthroat business that they have zero advantage or experience in. Even if they bought a company like GM outright, it would be basically nothing but a huge distraction from their primary business. A company like Tesla they could manage because it is so small but eventually they would probably sell it off.
While Google has the financial means to get into the car business if they wanted to, they would be insane to do so. I could easily see them providing technology used in cars but I don't see any (sane) reason why they would actually want to make cars themselves.
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I haven't seen any evidence yet that Google isn't interested in huge distractions from their primary business.
They are one of the most schizophrenic companies there is - starting up random projects just to cull them after they actually start to make traction.
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I haven't seen any evidence yet that Google isn't interested in huge distractions from their primary business.
Google hasn't done anything that would qualify as a huge distraction. Yes they go off on all sorts of tangents but none of them are giant, bet the business, diversions. Nothing that would harm their core advertising business. Even Android is really nothing more than a defensive play to ensure they cannot get locked out of the mobile market by Apple and Microsoft. Certainly nothing they have done is a distraction to the degree getting into the car making business would be.
I work in manufacturing and am w
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I haven't seen any evidence yet that Google isn't interested in huge distractions from their primary business.
Google hasn't done anything that would qualify as a huge distraction. Yes they go off on all sorts of tangents but none of them are giant, bet the business, diversions. Nothing that would harm their core advertising business. Even Android is really nothing more than a defensive play to ensure they cannot get locked out of the mobile market by Apple and Microsoft.
You are aware that Android is currently dominating the mobile market?
You're also quite wrong. Google have a huge stake in GIS and have become one of the worlds leading imagery providers, so much to the point that they now have their own satellites (GeoEYE).
Google is extremely diversified, so much so they could survive the complete destruction of their advertisement business.
Google is not diversified at all (Score:2)
You are aware that Android is currently dominating the mobile market?
You'd have to live under a rock to not know how Android is doing. What is your point? Google makes virtually no money from Android directly.
You're also quite wrong. Google have a huge stake in GIS and have become one of the worlds leading imagery providers, so much to the point that they now have their own satellites (GeoEYE).
Which is entirely consistent with their search driven advertising business. That's not a distraction. That's a core business for them and really it is a cost center. They bought that so that they could enhance their local search.
Google is extremely diversified, so much so they could survive the complete destruction of their advertisement business.
Google is barely diversified at all. You haven't actually looked at any of their financial statements. Google makes close to 95% of thei [sec.gov]
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Apple is also purported to be building their own electric car, but I don't think either Apple or Google want to be in the car *manufacturing* business. That is messy, labor/union intensive and involves a whole lot of engineering and regulatory crap they know nothing about.
They want to be suppliers to whoever IS building the cars. Building your own skunkworks vehicle gives you a shiny to show off but more importantly gives you a lot of engineering exposure to the internals that you wouldn't know about othe
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Adsense, gMail, Youtube, Android?
Never heard of em?
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Adsense, gMail, Youtube, Android?
Never heard of em?
That seems to be the entire, comprehensive list of old Google products. Unlike, for example:
Google Answers
Lively
Google Reader
Deskbar
Clic-to-Call
Writely
Hello
Send to Phone
Google Audio Ads
Google Catalogs
Dodgeball
Google Ride Finder
Shared stuff
Page creator
Marratech
GOOG-411 (which was awesome)
Google Labs
Google Buzz
Google Gears
and on, and on, and on (that's maybe 1/3rd of the graveyard)
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Most of those were around for a VERY short time, or else were rolled into another product. Goog411, for example, was specifically there to build a voice database, which is now used in Android and Google Voice.
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Re:Good for him and the world. (Score:4, Informative)
I believe the China problem was that a lot of speculators bought a lot of cars hoping to make a killing. The resulting oversupply led to cancellations. It was badly managed.
On the issue of hydrogen fuel cells; they just don't make sense for many reasons:
- efficiency (they are less efficient than gasoline)
- distribution (they require special transport trucks... you can't use any existing distribution)
- hydrogen is made from fossil fuels so no benefit to the environment
- fueling (fuel stations cost several million dollars and have low capacity)
Electricity, OTOH, is ubiquitous. Electricity service is everywhere and the demand from electric cars is a rounding error on electric capacity. Plus, batteries and electric motors are much more efficient (90%) than internal combustion engines or fuel cells (30%).
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No magic required.
Tesla has built 67 SuperChargers in China (second in number only to the US).
http://supercharge.info/ [supercharge.info]
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Also the electric car has one huge manufacturing advantage. It is very easy to extend the factory to start producing domestic solar power kits, complete versions. The primary part of which is not the solar panel but the battery, inverter and control systems. So the panel can be conventionally outsourced and the rest of the kit assembled and ready for sale and installation. Right now is the right time for a retail complete ready to install kit by skilled trained franchise dealers. Part of that kit of course
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Most of the industrial hydrogen available is created by extracting it from hydrocarbons.
So you can either refine the oil into gasoline / petrol / diesel, or you can extract the hydrogen from it and burn that. Either way, you still are pumping oil from the ground, and still dealing with the carbon waste.
If we were cracking hydrogen from water at industrial scale, then there might be something to hydrogen-based transportation; but that takes energy on a scale of nuclear reactors and apparently nobody is inte
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We have a complete reliable electricity network capable of recharging all of Tesla's cars right now and for the forseeable future. I generate all of my electricity needs including electric car with a smallish solar installation at home. I don't even need the grid. Electric cars are the future of road transportation and they are the reality of road transportation today... just buy and electric car and stop burning fossil fuel. You don't have any excuse to continue polluting the air.
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Nobody is interested in generating electricity to make hydrogen because it doesn't make sense. You waste about 80% of the electricity compared to just putting it into a battery.
http://phys.org/news85074285.h... [phys.org]
So cars go to US/EU rather than China (Score:2)
It doesn't matter if demand in China is lower than expected when demand in the US and Europe is unfulfilled. Units that might have been originally planned for China get redesignated for US or Europe during production.
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I don't know where you picked you stats, but recently Tesla just announced otherwise.
Actually I watched the recent excitement regarding Tesla on CNBC earlier this month, but googling shows: ...
The record was broken through a 55 percent sales increase for the same period from the previous year."
"April 5 (UPI) -- Tesla Motors announced it broke a company record for the first quarter of 2015
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Wo... [upi.com]
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That's possibly the dumbest thing I've read this week... but it's on Slate, so... yeah.
Of course he paid the load back early. That's what anyone with an IQ above room temperature and even an ounce of financial sense would do. That quality is how he went from near bankruptcy to billions in the bank, by the way. It's also far and above what happened with Solyndra, which did not repay its loan in any way, filing for bankruptcy and repaying debtors pennies on the dollar. In case that's not clear enough for you:
Re:Billionaire saved by taxpayer (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, the DoE got its loan repaid *in full*, *early*, and *with interest*, and the result was a successful American company providing employment and driving innovation with world-leading products, built in America, and paying US taxes. But according to the dimwit that wrote that article, because the DoE was in a position to bend Tesla over and fuck it in the ass, and they did not do that, that represents a "DISASTER" for taxpayers. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and move on.
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Getting taxpayers a profit proportional to the lending risk they assumed is not "fucking [Tesla] in the ass".
The loan program also lends money to epic failures like Solyndra - if they don't maximize their profits on the better investments, they won't cover the costs on the bad ones.
Federal tax money is not a personal piggy bank for your favorite CEO/corporation. "Socialized risk and privatized profit" ring a bell?
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Any loan program will have failures. I remember during the 2012 election Rupublicans said Obama was terrible, because fed loans made under him had a 20% bankruptcy rate. But hailed Romney as a business hero even though under his leadership Bain Capital had a 50% bankruptcy rate. The numbers aren't as bad as people make out for either; that's how these things work. We can't act like the sky is falling over some failures.
Taxpayer money, collected involuntarily ... versus private capital, collected voluntarily from people who wanted to risk their money chasing profits.
Are you unable to notice a simple, fundamental difference in the source of money?
I'll also note that your metric of success for the loan program is simply wrong. It's not measured by bankruptcy rate ... but net profit. Profit means that overall, the money was productive; bankruptcy in of itself is not relevant.
And the feds don't need to make back all their money via repayment. As the other poster said, Tesla is still paying US taxes and hiring US workers. The feds get money off that too. The feds didn't need to recoup all losses simply by repayment since they gain (maybe more so) by having a successful company.
It has not been shown that federal interfer
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Among all the companies in that program the default rate was very low. Solyndra was the only noteworthy default. The DOE made a solid overall profit on the program. It was indisputably a successful program.
No, it isn't "indisputably a successful program". http://www.forbes.com/sites/ti... [forbes.com]
Every cent of money funding this loan program was taken from a US citizen who could have been using it for some superior performing personal investment.
Re: Billionaire saved by taxpayer (Score:2)
Remember, Slate's entire business model is to find fault where there is none and assign blame. Keep this in mind when you read their next inflammatory article and you'll see the pattern.
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And, while we are at it, our (taxpayer's) investment in Tesla was even worse than in Solyndra [slate.com].
Interesting article. It does make a good point about the government not getting its due returns on such an investment, yet ignores the complications of government ownership in a business and how that might lead to interference one way or another. I think it might be a good idea for the government to have loan requirements that payback proportionally more if the company's value grows, or stock held in some escrow like account that is not managed by the government, but pays out to them at predetermined times.
Re:Billionaire saved by taxpayer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Billionaire saved by taxpayer (Score:5, Insightful)
This is FUD. You may argue that Department of Energy should have acted as venture capitalist and demanded more return, but it is not a loss. It is potential profit that was not received. Congress explicitly required Department lend on low rates and they have good reasons for it. Department is not a venture capitalist and should not act as such, such activity should be left to private business, not Government entity. There is big difference between corporations requiring bailout because of their own mismanagement or fraud while doing usual business and corporations trying to introduce something completely new, that may benefit all taxpayers in the long run. Hence the loan was from Department of ENERGY, not Treasury.
And yet, the federal government makes loans to grad students in the 6% to 7% range. A failing tech company with a billionaire owner gets low interest loans because of the potential for the future, but low and middle income grad students, who really are the future get high rate loans.
Re:Billionaire saved by taxpayer (Score:5, Insightful)
So because one wrong policy is wrong, we should make all other policies that are remotely related wrong too? Is that what you are arguing here?
How about we just fix the wrong one (higher-than-mortgage-rates interest-bearing student loans)?
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So because one wrong policy is wrong, we should make all other policies that are remotely related wrong too? Is that what you are arguing here?
How about we just fix the wrong one (higher-than-mortgage-rates interest-bearing student loans)?
I, for one, would support that 100%. But, until they do, why should billionaires get a better government interest rate than the average person?
Re:Billionaire saved by taxpayer (Score:4, Interesting)
"but low and middle income grad students, who really are the future"
How so? Does the government get some guarantee on these grad students that's any better than what the DOE has? I don't think so.
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"but low and middle income grad students, who really are the future"
How so? Does the government get some guarantee on these grad students that's any better than what the DOE has? I don't think so.
Actually, yes. These loans can't even be dismissed via bankruptcy and many government benefits are tied to the repayment of them.
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Because no lender in their right mind would loan students money to begin with.
Student loans are unsecured - the student doesn't put up anything and can borrow easily $100K. And if the student can't find a job, it's not repaid. No lender would take that kind of risk, especially at a measly 7% interest rate - typical unsecured loans are closer to 20-30% (you know them as credit card
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If there has been a "bold-faced lie" in this thread, you are it. Banks were making them and even continue making them today, despite government competition. Here is one example [discover.com] — from a credit-card issuer — and a simple Google-search returns many more.
That this i
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I wasn't referring to loan repayment. In response to your "potential for future" statement, I was referring to the ROI in terms of progress and advancement. There's no guarantee the grad student will do anything significant in return for the loan. Tesla on the other hand, already has.
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To be fair, these are unsecured loans. Yes, the rate is higher than the ~4% you would get for a mortgage, but it's better than the 18% you would pay on a credit card and on par with the rate you pay on a car loan. The crazy
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Student loans are the most secure loans made.
You cannot default on a student loan. You can be in bankruptcy, broke, homeless, unemployed, with kidney failure, and you still cannot default on your student loan. There are only two ways out: pay it off, or die. And seeing as how most folks incur student loans when they are 18-26, odds are strongly in favor of the lender.
You can refinance student loans, people didn't in the past because your student loan was at ~3%. When the House GOP refused to pass a continua
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False. Though I do Fear the government, there was nothing Uncertain or Doutbful about my post.
That's, what the statists, who wrote the Slate's article, are arguing: government-investment is Ok, it just should've been done better. I argue, that the government should not be "investing" in anything at all.
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Yeah, yeah — and reduce Global Warming, right.
Except electric cars still need energy — so, instead of burning something inside the vehicle, we now have to burn something somewhere else — often enough losing overall [huffingtonpost.com]. And instead of depending on our own oil [forbes.com], we now need the Chinese to make those wonder-batteries [greencarreports.com] — so our dependence on the potential military rival [thehill.com] only grows with each Tesla sold.
But a great idea otherwise —
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But there is no such thing as a free market. Yet most people still agree that competition helps drive [pun] the economy.
Re:Billionaire saved by taxpayer (Score:5, Insightful)
But there is no such thing as a free market. Yet most people still agree that competition helps drive [pun] the economy.
It isn't really about a free market, but about capitalism as an economic system. According to capitalism, Tesla, should have gone to the banks or investors and if Musk's plan was good, he would have received the capital he needed to stave off bankruptcy. He actually did that and had a deal worked out. However, the government also intervened in the market and offered him a better deal. That is not capitalism, but corporatism (which is the politically correct modern name for fascism).
Either way, Musk and Tesla would have staved off bankruptcy, the difference is that with the government bailout/loan, Musk gets to keep control of Tesla, whereas the Google investment would have split control. It's not so much about a free market, but instead about the government intervening in the economy that seems to benefit only a select few. I'm not saying that the government should not have loaned the money to Musk. I am saying it should only have done so if there were no other option. Since there was another option, although less palatable to Musk, he should not have received a federal bailout.
Put differently, unlike the GM bailout, this bailout was to somebody in the 1% group to enable him to make luxury automobiles for others in the 1%. All paid for by the 99% who can't afford such a vehicle in the first place. It may be argued that GM was too big to allow to fail, but it is hard to argue that about Tesla, particularly when there was private financing available.
Re:Billionaire saved by taxpayer (Score:4, Insightful)
No, "corporatism" was Mussolini's preferred phrase, over that of "fascism." It is not "fascism" by any stretch of the imagination for a company to get a loan from the government.
And subjected himself to the whims of the corporations that gave him money? I'm sure they totally wouldn't interfere with the way the company operated, they'd never start demanding ridiculous growth at the cost of product quality and customer service, not at all.
At worst there is no difference. At best, it prevented an actually innovative company from sinking and its technology dispersing into the market, never to be heard from again while GM et. al. continued doing what they were doing.
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No, "corporatism" was Mussolini's preferred phrase, over that of "fascism." It is not "fascism" by any stretch of the imagination for a company to get a loan from the government.
And subjected himself to the whims of the corporations that gave him money? I'm sure they totally wouldn't interfere with the way the company operated, they'd never start demanding ridiculous growth at the cost of product quality and customer service, not at all.
At worst there is no difference. At best, it prevented an actually innovative company from sinking and its technology dispersing into the market, never to be heard from again while GM et. al. continued doing what they were doing.
Yes, Mussolini preferred the term corporatism, over fascism, but corporatism, today, is the acceptable term because of fascism has ties to Hitler and Mussolini.
It doesn't matter if if Google or anybody else would have changed Tesla, that is not the point. As an investor in the company, they have every right to do so, up to the point of their percentage ownership. That's how corporations work, after all. The government had no need to bail out Tesla as there was private financing available, unless you want
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Whatever Mussolini's preference, Fascism [wikipedia.org] originated in Italy. That government officials are in a position to extend loans at all, is Collectivism — a sticky coin of which Fascism is one of the sides (Communism being the other).
This very FA talks about it not sinking, but selling to another company...
Fascisms gives power to workers not owners ... (Score:2)
corporatism (which is the politically correct modern name for fascism)
The idea that fascism is synonymous with corporatism is wrong. Its a false meme often repeated by some on the left for political purposes, a technique of manipulating the ignorant. Much like some on the right toss around the word "communistic".
In reality fascism is a form of syndicalism, where workers are formed into syndicates to counter the power of owners. Fascism is actually quite socialistic in this respect. Fascism does not fit neatly into the political spectrum, it is a weird combination of ideas
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Then what "-ism" would you suggest to describe what the current situation is in the US?
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We are an oligarchy of the rich and powerful. Corporations and government are tools to maintain the oligarchy.
(An oligarchy is rule by a small group of people)
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All oligarchies are "of the rich and powerful". If you can not make your point without tautologies, it is probably invalid to begin with.
Maybe reality is more complex that any -ism? (Score:2)
Then what "-ism" would you suggest to describe what the current situation is in the US?
Maybe reality is more complex that any -ism? More complex than the politicians and their adherents would have us believe?
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You are incorrect.
The loan from DOE was made in 2010: http://energy.gov/lpo/tesla-motors
He looked for help from Google in 2013.
More and less free market (Score:2)
"Free market" may be a Platonic ideal, but market freedom can still be compared. A market, in which the government invests billions of captive taxpayers' monies, is less free, than one, where only private investors exist.
Not all competition is useful. The skillset required for convincing government bureaucrats to extend loans has little overlap with what's needed to secure real investment from people risking their own funds.
And Microsoft 'saved' Apple... (Score:2)
Please tell me how an anecdote from a couple of years ago is news...
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It's like you're from an alternate timeline. In this reality, the original iPhone completely blew away everything else on the market.
I guess the biggest thing was the internet in your pocket. A real browser, easy email, camera, pictures, video, music... 1000s of songs worth of music, in fact; it had a whole iPod built right in. All integrated nicely into a very slim phone. Click to dial numbers on the internet, Granny-capable conference calling; hell, you could look shit up on the internet *while* talking o
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Sarcasm aside, Microsoft was heavily under the anti-trust scope at the time, and needed a viable OS competitor to not look like a monopoly. MS thus wanted Apple to survive. (It's possibly the same reason AMD is still alive.)
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Everyone seems to forget that Apple had a smoking gun in the $1B+ QuickTime vs. Windows Media lawsuit, and one of the conditions of Gates and Jobs making a deal was cross-licensing all patents.
THAT is what Gates wanted. Jobs needed the cash to keep Apple afloat (which he got far more of by liquidating Apple's holdings in ARM after killing Newton), but also needed the legal squabbles to go away and needed a reason for people to continue buying Mac, and Office was that reason.
One of the reasons NeXT never we
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By that reasoning, you must think Mitt Romney is God.
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no, but mitt romney does?
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no, but mitt romney does?
No, but he can become one in the afterlife if he has enough wives on Earth prior to his death.
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you must think Mitt Romney is God.
Mitt's governorship here in Massachusetts brought universal healthcare and gay marriage. We were the first state to have either. He also reigned in state spending enforced fiscal transparency. Democrats actually liked him.
Then he decided to run for president and went batshit-fucking-loco. He denounced his previous pro-choice stance, started vetoing his own healthcare agenda, reversed his emissions cap-and-trade positions, and started sucking every Tea Party dick he could find.
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Yeah, he did what he had to do to get the job done in both cases.
What you were describing is what the job of winning the Republican primary has become. The only purpose of which is to insure that a good man cannot possibly become president.
I see all that now in hindsight.
Dang...
is Iron Man next? (Score:2)
Misleading headline? (Score:2)
Maybe it's my reading comprehension, but this headline made it sound like this deal actually happened to me.
According to the article, "But the deal never happened because Tesla's fortunes quickly began to turn after Musk demanded that all staff, no matter what their job title, get on the phones and sell cars to curious customers who had placed refundable deposits."
Perhaps the headline should read "almost bailed out," or something similar.
Re:Misleading headline? (Score:4, Informative)
Nevermind, I read "bailed out" to mean the company was saved by the sale, or the company was "bailed out," not that he opted out of the sale. I still think the headline could be more clear.
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"Elon Musk Bailed Out of ($6bn Google Takeover To Save Tesla From 2013 Bankruptcy)" rather than:
"(Elon Musk Bailed Out of $6bn Google Takeover) To Save Tesla From 2013 Bankruptcy"
A better headline would be: "Elon Musk bailed out of $6bn Google Takeover, despite teetering on the edge of bankruptcy".
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well if the loan is repaid with interest.. tax payers win, the company wins, the government wins, employees win etc.
sometimes supporting domestic industry is a strategic play, that does pay off for all parties involved.
The problem is sussing out viable companies that need a bit of help, from parasites that exist solely to bilk the government out of money.
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. If you're a few dollars away from losing your home, this government habit of investing your money in wealthy people causes great hardship.
People in those situations arent paying taxes unless theyre making enough to survive and are straight up blowing it. You do understand how our tax system works, right?
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Perhaps someone who needed money soon, home was at risk, etc, is today employed by Tesla? This wasn't a bailout of a tired, failed company that's never going anywhere - this was a loan to a company that did quite well once it got past its cash crunch. Many jobs were saved, many were later created. Big win for taxpayers.
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It's all about return on investment. How much was gained by each $1 loaned to a given company. For Soylendra, it was pure corruption - the loan was pocketed, and nothing of value was gained. For Tesla, if a loan of $X both gets created and results in jobs paying $X or more a year, that's a good result, even risk-adjusted. Most bailouts are terrible investments, because they're going to companies that are terrible in the first place.
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... both gets *repaid and results in ...
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OTOH, the real problem is not loans to businesses, but when we make huge tax breaks to monster businesses such oil companies, GM, Ford, etc to take work offshore, rather than keep it here.
Government loans (Score:2)
I.e. Tesla only exists thanks to corporate welfare, in which billionaires get generous loans from struggling average Joes.
Substitute Tesla for GM or Chrysler and you could say the exact same thing.
The difference however is that GM and Chrysler provide a huge number of jobs both at themselves and their suppliers for those "struggling average Joes". Without them the Joes would have been much worse off. You really do not want to know how big a blow to the economy it would have been if they had not received bailout loans. Tesla on the other hand is a promising small company that needed a cash bridge to get their next product to
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Yeah, because the government absolutely did not get paid back the principle, did not get the interest on the loan, and absolutely is not collecting further taxes from the company, it's sales, it's employee salaries, or it's investments.
Or, they did get all of those things, and everyone is better off - including the so-called struggling average Joes.
This is actually a case of "corporate welfare" where it worked.
good to know (Score:2)
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Blind cynicism is laziness, because it makes you feel smart without the work of actually being smart.
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unlike most of the business ppl, such as Romney, Fiorina, McNerney, Welsh, Koch bros, etc, they focus on nothing but making money and have no interest in the future of America or Mankind.
Uhh, I'm pretty sure any feigned interest in mankind by the motley crew cited above (no offense to the band) has to be part of a ploy for more money/power (if there is a difference). You should probably add a bunch of names from the left as well.
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None of the people you quoted appear to give a damn about the future of America or Mankind, either. They simply chose a different route to more money and power for themselves - one that hurts far, far more.
So Musk renegged (Score:2)
and that will stick with him forever.
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No it won't business deals fail all of the time. Remember the Sprint/T-Mobile merger? It failed. [venturebeat.com] Previously AT&T's attempt at buying T-Mobile also failed [wikipedia.org] and Deutsche Telekom received a hefty premium for AT&T dropping the deal.
As per the original acquisition agreement, Deutsche Telekom will receive $3 billion in cash as well as access to $1 billion worth of AT&T-held wireless spectrum.
So there may or may not have been a penalty associated with this deal not going through, the article doesn't discuss this.
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Look at the big board!