[davidrudder]

I'm not an economist, but this is how I understand it. GM paid back it's debt in full, but it paid most of it back in stock. The US government has sold some of it, so it's gotten about half of it's bailout back in cash. But, it still has a ton of GM stock. It's selling the stock slowly to avoid disrupting the market.

That being said, the government needs to sell at something like $75/share to make their money back, but it's at $33 as I write this.

Source: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/05/09/when-will-g...

[nathan_long]

>> GM paid back it's debt in full, but it paid most of it back in stock. ... the government needs to sell at something like $75/share to make their money back, but it's at $33 as I write this.

So they "paid" their debt with something that 1) isn't worth enough to cover their debt and may never be 2) gives the government a financial interest in continuing to keep them afloat.

Pretty nice deal if you can get it.

[testing12341234]

This announcement doesn't really have anything to do with GM (or even apply to them) in anything but the "we gave them a loan" sense.

From the linked article:

"This program is often confused with the financial bailouts provided to the then bankrupt GM and Chrysler, who were ineligible for the ATVM program, because a requirement of that program was good financial health."

[davidrudder]

Yeah, I thought that was confusing. "We're the only", "but in some circumstances we're not really talking about everyone". I thought it was worth answering the question "did GM pay back it's loan" because GM is the largest and most notorious recipient of US loan money.

Maybe Tesla really did mean "We're the only American company who received an ATVM loan to pay it back." But, if so, they're being intentionally misleading.