Elon Musk had a sharp exchange of words with venture capitalist Vinod Khosla on Musk’s X platform on Saturday as Khosla brought up government support for Musk’s businesses.
More Moderate Path Needed: The exchanges started several months ago with Khosla, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, calling for an open Democratic convention and criticizing Donald Trump. Replying to Khosla, Tesla CEO Musk said, “Come on, Vinod. Trump/Vance LFG!!”
Musk argued that while Trump may not be without flaws, he is good for meritocracy and individual freedom, adding that many years ago this was ensured by the Democratic Party but now it is the Republicans that stands for these.
Musk Clarifies Regarding Subsidies: This argument did not go down well with Khosla, who questioned the rationale of subsidies to the ventures of the businessmen and preferred that these might have been used for deficit reduction. “This ‘meritocratic and promote individual freedoms over the heavy hand of government’ I agree with. How much government money does SpaceX get? Could Tesla have survived without EV subsidies?,” he said, adding that Twitter, which has been rebranded as X following Musk acquiring it, may not be getting government money.
SpaceX is a spacecraft manufacturer, space launch provider, and satellite communications company founded by Musk in 2002. Reduction in the cost of space travel and colonization of Mars were the main premises on which the company was established.
“Which of these would you rather the government didn’t spend money on and reduce the deficit?” Khosla said. One of the main challenges before the government is the huge fiscal deficits it has run up and the two mainstream parties have different approaches toward tackling the crisis in hand.
Khosla’s comments about the deficit elicited a sharp reaction from Musk. “Do some research before you display your utter ignorance,” he said. He noted that SpaceX gets no subsidies and received half as much as Boeing for astronaut transport, but did 100% of the work.
Musk also clarified that government subsidies make up only a minor portion of his electric-vehicle manufacturing company Tesla’s revenue. On the other hand, oil & gas companies get massive tax breaks that exceed those given to the EV industry by several orders of magnitude, he added.
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