Live by the crony sword: Musk loses subsidy, Biden admin targets?
We have said many times that Elon Musk is the most likeable of the big time crony capitalists. He has benefited greatly from working the crony system in many parts of his various enterprises. Tesla very likely wouldn’t exist if it were not for the “help” of taxpayers. The same can be said for Solar City etc.
But the guy has done much to redeem himself. Taking over Twitter and dealing with and revamping that censorious nightmare goes a long way. That Musk is open in his resistance to woke culture is also of serious value (for many of us). He has called out the cancelers. But in doing these things he has made himself a target.
He didn’t have to. He could have continued on as he had, in the good graces of government and accepted by everyone with a West Hollywood address, all the while piling up the billions. But he didn’t. He put himself out there and became a lightning rod in the middle of a cultural storm. He has guts.
Many of the people who now no longer like Mr. Musk are in the government (or are “friends” of people in government) and control things like “rural broadband” subsidies. Musk’s new enemies control the crony purse strings.
So is it really a surprise that Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet company has just been denied a $900 million subsidy for pretty flimsy reasons, at least according to one FCC commissioner?
A dissent by FCC commissioner Brendan Carr said Starlink needed to show it could provide service to at least 40% of roughly 640,000 rural areas by the end of 2025.
Carr criticized the FCC’s decision, saying the commission “did not require—and has never required—any other award winner to show that it met its service obligation years ahead of time.”
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