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Elon Musk Backtracks on Earlier Comments, Says 'I Don't Hate Apple'

Dmunjal said:
This is about facts. Why don't you say Apple takes advantage of the system in sheltering billions offshore?

Btw, the DOE loan and the rebates began under the Bush administration.
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Apple isn't taking a dime from taxpayers. America's corporate tax law is joke and Apple is not remotely alone in choosing not to repatriate their profits. When our corporate tax rates/laws are sane (like Europe, Canada and Asia) the issue of repatriating overseas profits will go away. Tesla sucking off the taxpayer teat is not going to go away because they cannot be profitable without carbon credits, car subsidies and whatever other taxpayer help they can grab with both hands.

Now if Apple were taking subsidies, we could talk - but two wrongs still don't make a right which is why I didn't respond to the question of oil subsidies. Like I'd defend those either.
 
hans_vanhans said:
Apple isn't taking a dime from taxpayers. America's corporate tax law is joke and Apple is not remotely alone in choosing not to repatriate their profits. When our corporate tax rates/laws are sane (like Europe, Canada and Asia) the issue of repatriating overseas profits will go away. Tesla sucking off the taxpayer teat is not going to go away because they cannot be profitable without carbon credits, car subsidies and whatever other taxpayer help they can grab with both hands.

Now if Apple were taking subsidies, we could talk - but two wrongs still don't make a right which is why I didn't respond to the question of oil subsidies. Like I'd defend those either.
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You're wrong again. The $7500 is not paid by the government. It is a reduction that a taxpayer already pays. Tesla doesn't get the money. Taxpayers are just getting back money they already earned. Same as Apple. It's tax avoidance.

I do agree that they're all wrong. But no reason to single out Tesla.
 
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An article came out in BusinessInsider today about how Apple offers huge signing bonuses to people to leave Tesla but some of them don't go because Tesla is on a path to "change the world."

I've also heard some people tell me that at SpaceEx, another Musk company, employees are paid less but they're expected to work more because it's SpaceEx. In other words, employees should feel honored to work for SpaceEx to a point that they're willing to take less money for it.

If Apple's poaching of Tesla employees is bothering Musk, then my belief is that his remarks that Apple is Tesla's graveyard is a ploy to make would-be defectors feel like sellouts for taking Apple's signing bonuses and leaving Tesla. This is just one of my theories.

Let's not forget Steve Jobs' famous pitch to John Sculley: "Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life or do you want to change the world?" If my theory is correct, Musk is just pulling a Steve Jobs and trying to be a salesman.
 
diamond.g said:
Oh. Yeah my country doesn't like nuclear. I was curious if your country was like mine. Funny though as I live fairy close to one of VA's nuclear reactors but my electric company doesn't use it as a primary source of power.
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Yes, we have nuclear, hydro and carbon but the idiots want to play with "green" because it's politically correct. It doesn't matter that it pure waste of money, it's just the tax-payers money.

And who cares for the slave sheep?
 
hans_vanhans said:
That's the point - why can't anyone get hundreds of millions in tax free, interest free subsidies to take their shot? Why does Musk get to play with $500,000,000+ of taxpayer money with NO RISK WHATSOEVER of actual failure - hey, we can just print more money, right?
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Of course he took risk - he has a lot of capital at stake. And it's a public company - so the risk is widely shared. He received subsidies proportional to the size of the company at the time because, if you remember, the big three went for $25,000,000,000, or 50x what went to Tesla.

Making a profitable product without government help is significantly harder than making an unprofitable product entirely subsidized by taxpayers with your target market 1%er millionaires and billionaires.
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Again, the subsidy is available to all car manufacturers that meet the technical hurdles. And don't for a second think we aren't subsidizing ICE cars, through out foreign policy around oil, subsidies for big oil projects, and costs towards our health system around the pollution caused by ICE. Never mind tax breaks to businesses for buying heavy trucks like Hummers and Suburbans and government fleet purchases for police and military vehicles. In short, I wish they would subsidize electric more.
 
You are the One said:
Yes, we have nuclear, hydro and carbon but the idiots want to play with "green" because it's politically correct. It doesn't matter that it pure waste of money, it's just the tax-payers money.

And who cares for the slave sheep?
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I don't know, or care, where you are from, but the idea of 'going green' makes a lot of sense in the long run. We can't continue polluting like we are, and not giving a damn about what our chemicals are doing to the world.

People seem to have the idea that our lives are so short, and, well, nothing really bad has happened over the centuries, but that's fallacious logic. Those centuries, and decades are adding up, and we have been seeing the results of our callousness towards the planet that we live on.

Even nuclear isn't 'green' in the orthodox sense as it needs technological processing, and toxic materials go in, and toxic materials go out.

I visit other countries, and am totally amazed at what they are doing, for a relatively low long term cost, and then get disgusted when I get home and see the near total lack of public transportation, the number of cars and trucks on the roads, and the number of planes in the skies. I guess we deserve to have the planet rebel.

We have to get used to the idea that the planet may turn on us IN OUR LIFETIMES and start killing masses of people.

And scoff if you must, I expect it, but I feel it's coming... There is no 'fairy godmother', or robed deity that is going to swoop down and save us from ourselves.

Oh, and when I bought my Prius, I got a 'rebate' for purchasing it from the government. It was billed as an 'offset', to make the car more affordable. As it was, it was still rather expensive, but I appreciated the offset anyway... It helped.

Soon, hopefully, the industry won't need offsets to woo customers.
 
diamond.g said:
Yet folks here want an apple car (myself included). Would that car be gas powered since there is no market for electric, and never will be?
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Apple is certainly able to absorb the losses it will take with any electric car they may have.

My point is Tesla is only in existence because it's living off of taxpayer money.
 
Patriot72 said:
Apple is certainly able to absorb the losses it will take with any electric car they may have.

My point is Tesla is only in existence because it's living off of taxpayer money.
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They are also on the 'bleeding edge', and there are many people that realize that, and will support, and purchase (if able) products from such companies. Apple being one of them, for the most part.

And, in the wake of the Solyndra scandal that wasn't, you really think that the corporate owned and controlled republican party would allow yet another forward looking and thinking company to be a 'welfare queen' and make more money off the government than the oil and military industrial complex companies do? I think you misjudge the current political climate. Tesla would have to be spending a whole lot of that money around just to save their necks...
 
pacalis said:
Of course he took risk - he has a lot of capital at stake. And it's a public company - so the risk is widely shared. He received subsidies proportional to the size of the company at the time because, if you remember, the big three went for $25,000,000,000, or 50x what went to Tesla.


Again, the subsidy is available to all car manufacturers that meet the technical hurdles. And don't for a second think we aren't subsidizing ICE cars, through out foreign policy around oil, subsidies for big oil projects, and costs towards our health system around the pollution caused by ICE. Never mind tax breaks to businesses for buying heavy trucks like Hummers and Suburbans and government fleet purchases for police and military vehicles. In short, I wish they would subsidize electric more.
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If you can't make a profit on your own, either come up with a better business plan or don't be in business. It's not the government role to subsidize ANY business. They don't subsidize mine. I've never taken one offered. It's sickening that taxpayer money is taken to cover either bad business or business based on hoaxes.
 
Patriot72 said:
GM should have NEVER been bailed out.
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I can see that. Especially considering that they tried to hide behind that bail out agreement when they knew, and it was found out that they were deliberately killing their customers with something as simple as an ignition switch.

I'd have liked to see the entire old management teams walked into a federal pound you in the butt prison after that heinous act...
 
koruki said:
lol you want to punch people and told me to calm down.
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What?

Correction, I said in my original post he has a very punchable face aka annoying face. I never SAID I would punch his face. Don't put words in my mouth. Jesus.
 
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Patriot72 said:
If you can't make a profit on your own, either come up with a better business plan or don't be in business. It's not the government role to subsidize ANY business. They don't subsidize mine. I've never taken one offered. It's sickening that taxpayer money is taken to cover either bad business or business based on hoaxes.
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It's not sickening at all. Your opinion is that the government shouldn't subsidize any business. My opinion is I have no issue with it. Remember, Tesla's mission is to accelerate the automotive industry into sustainable transport. Tesla's R&D division alone has already made numerous innovations in green energy and batteries. These innovations actually progress a noble cause. Tesla is "giving back" as much as they are getting from taxpayers.
 
Dmunjal said:
At what cost? A million dollars per job or something like that?
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What would the cost have been if the jobs had been lost? Over 35% of the U.S. population receives some type of welfare. IMO, keeping people working is a better alternative than adding a million more to the welfare list. A million jobs probably effects at least 3 million people when their families are taken into consideration.

I do understand why people don't approve of taxpayer help for businesses, but I also think that letting the auto industry die would have been worse.
 
AppleScruff1 said:
What would the cost have been if the jobs had been lost? Over 35% of the U.S. population receives some type of welfare. IMO, keeping people working is a better alternative than adding a million more to the welfare list. A million jobs probably effects at least 3 million people when their families are taken into consideration.

I do understand why people don't approve of taxpayer help for businesses, but I also think that letting the auto industry die would have been worse.
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Where did the money come from to save GM? It wasn't free. There's opportunity cost to it. Who's to say that a private company wouldn't have bought GM and tried to fix what was wrong with it. Hey, isn't that what happened to Chrysler??
 
hans_vanhans said:
That's the point - why can't anyone get hundreds of millions in tax free, interest free subsidies to take their shot? Why does Musk get to play with $500,000,000+ of taxpayer money with NO RISK WHATSOEVER of actual failure - hey, we can just print more money, right?

Making a profitable product without government help is significantly harder than making an unprofitable product entirely subsidized by taxpayers with your target market 1%er millionaires and billionaires.
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I hear you about Tesla only making products that only the rich can afford. I do want to point out that there was once a company called Apple that received a 500,000 government backed investment (if someone knows the details, please correct me). There was also a company called google that received funding for it's prototype. Even the internet has it's roots from US government. However, you are right and the examples above are peanuts in comparison.

I just think of all the tax incentives oil companies get..trust me we aren't the ones benefiting from those. Apple, GM, all the big companies get huge tax breaks and that's why companies have there headquarters in Ireland, isle of Man, etc... I'm not saying it's right, you can't just blame Tesla.

I really hope the Tesla gigafactory does reduce the cost of batteries for the entire world. If Apple is making an electric car, Elon's battery investments will help all of us.
 
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