Elon Musk spurns subsidies after SpaceX sought them out

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made a stir when he recently said that the US should “get rid of all” federal subsidies. “Just delete them all,” Musk, the world’s richest man, demanded. Musk’s comments were met with particular skepticism in the tech policy world; SpaceX is known for its aggressive pursuit of federal subsidies for SpaceX’s satellite internet division from the FCC. Since 2012, SpaceX has received $5.6 million in federal and state subsidies and Tesla has received $2.5 million, according to data from Good Jobs First, a group that advocates against corporate subsidies. Overall, Musk’s companies had received $4.9 billion in government support as of 2015, according to the Los Angeles Times — much of which came in the form of subsidies. In 2020, Starlink won almost $900 million as part of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, an FCC program meant to bring high-speed internet service to homes and small businesses in rural areas. That award made SpaceX the fourth-highest awardee for those funds. SpaceX fought hard to be eligible for the rural opportunity fund, over objections from critics who said satellite companies were not well-suited to achieve that program’s goals. But the FCC, then under Trump-era Chair Ajit Pai, doled out the money to SpaceX anyway. Arlene Martinez, communications director at advocacy group Good Jobs First, said she was “cheered to hear Musk support ending his run of receiving huge, publicly funded federal subsidy packages.” “Surely he’d agree that he should stop extracting public money from local, regional and state governments too,” she added.