Turns out people were right and Musk had a bunch of good ideas, some of which might have a very positive impact on the world (probably EV adoption) but all predicated on getting government money.
> their car business is really showing signs of strain at the moment.
Their car business aka "their entire business"? :-)
> Their car business aka "their entire business"? :-)
Tesla acquired SolarCity which became their Tesla Energy division so it's not just cars, they also do residential solar, batteries, and supercharger infrastructure (which more and more manufacturers are using).
Tesla's residential solar was falling since the acquisition (SolarCity before the acquisition deployed like 4x more solar than Tesla in 2023), and now they don't even mention it in the document we're discussing. But "energy generation and storage revenue" is 12% of their revenues, and they're showing a big growth in storage deployment, so the storage part is looking good, charging too.
Why not? They are specifically addressing the things that the public (the government) have stated are important to society. How is that not noble, even if profit-motivated?
That's an interesting angle, but the usual concern about this is lobbying/pork barrel/corruption and of course, regulatory capture, especially for SpaceX.
In an ideal world, what you're saying makes sense, but at least to give an example, for an Android phone, you have to persuade 500 million people to buy it. For SpaceX to get a multi billion dollar contract with the government you only have to persuade 10 people.
> their car business is really showing signs of strain at the moment.
Their car business aka "their entire business"? :-)