[cbozeman]

Musk had about $140 million when he ~started~ bought (sorry) Tesla. That's a pretty far cry from a billion. On top of that, there was no guarantee that electric cars would ever be embraced, especially by Americans, who traditionally, love ICE muscle cars.

[coldtea]

>On top of that, there was no guarantee that electric cars would ever be embraced, especially by Americans, who traditionally, love ICE muscle cars.

Generous subsidies for electrics in the US and other countries helped with that.

Like generous government money funnelled through NASA contracts helped Space X repeat what NASA did in the late 60s/early 70s, slightly improved, 40 years later...

[coryrc]

Yes, I remember when NASA was launching reusable rockets as regular supply missions and weren't using 5% GDP, and did such a great job they didn't end up giving $400MM/year to Russia to hitch rides on the Soyuz for the last decade.

[coldtea]

That would be the "slightly improved" part, "50 years later".

And NASA hasn't used "5% GDP" for 40 years. It has been less than 1% since 1973. Actually scratch that, it has been less than 1% the federal budget, which is much much less than the GDP.

Of course all that 50-years of IP got handed to the "private visionaries" of SpaceX for free, or rather, along with money paid to them...

[CraigJPerry]

If it was that low risk and easy for Musk, why didn't NASA just do it themselves? Or why not some other person? There seems to be quite a lot of space x competitors not doing as well as space x.

[blaser-waffle]

Where is the will in the federal government? If we handed 20% of the War On Terror budget to NASA would it make Americans more safe? Or feel more safe? (an important distinction since the TSA is mostly dog and pony shows).

Standard Fed'Gov contract hustle -- provide a service for less than what they're currently playing and leach off that gob'mnt teat.

[samatman]

Yeah, just look at all the other profitable companies in the space which did it too!

Can't turn around without bumping into an electric car / reusable rocket company these days.

[coldtea]

Well, for electric car, that's true...

>Yeah, just look at all the other profitable companies in the space which did it too!

Did those other companies in the space (of space) got NASA contracts and subsidies?

[shaklee3]

SpaceX is not profitable.

[bigbubba]

140 million is a lot closer to a billion (7x) than most people are to 140 million (>140x.)

[wincy]

Additionally, during the 2008 financial collapse Elon Musk took the last of his personal fortune and put it back into Tesla. The company very likely would have folded if he hadn’t put up his own money, and Elon Musk would have no longer been worth very much at all.

[symlinkk]

Once you get past a few million dollars, the extra money is just bargaining power and losing it doesn’t affect your day to day quality of life

[sergefaguet]

Lol you clearly are mistaken about how human emotions and happiness works

[coldtea]

However it works, it's still true to "losing it doesn’t affect your day to day quality of life".

Butthurt emotions is not the same as lower quality of life (e.g. less access to food, entertainment, travel, housing, health, studies, taking care of kids/relatives, etc).