Article from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/13/business/musk-trillionaire-government-tesla-spacex
Innards of article that I'm posting as a PSA:
The federal government awarded SpaceX more than $500 million worth of grants in its early years. And that $500 million is just a fraction of what Tesla received from government grants, loans, contracts and regulatory policies.
That’s not to say SpaceX’s success and Tesla’s roughly $1.5 trillion valuation are entirely due to federal spending, but both companies teetered as startups before receiving taxpayer subsidies.
SpaceX’s first major windfall was a $278 million grant from NASA in 2006 to develop the Falcon rocket system and Dragon space capsule. The Space Shuttle program was ending, and the US needed a new way to get astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station. It was the first of more than $500 million in grants SpaceX would receive, according to data from PitchBook, which tracks the valuation of private companies.
“That was about half of their capital that they raised to that point,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a public interest group advocating space flight, said ahead of the SpaceX IPO. “This was a substantial commitment that NASA provided.”
And while NASA has enjoyed the benefits of SpaceX’s success, with dozens of humans ferried to the space station aboard the company’s rockets, it didn’t benefit like those private investors.
Wall Street’s faith in Musk is the main reason his wealth has reached previously unimaginable heights — at least for the moment, as long as his companies’ share prices remain near where they are. But that faith comes because at the start of his businesses, when he needed financial assistance the most, it was the US government — not Wall Street — that provided the needed help.
WHERE'S OUR CUT?
