I think his point is that government shouldn't pick winners and losers with taxpayer money.

looking at fairness in retrospect. Musk justified the loan. He built the damn thing, an (possibly) eco friendly, not dependent on fossil fuel car that people love.

back in my country we have our own electric car company, which have been able to do the thing, but they havent been able to get people support.

Musk was able to do that.

I'm not saying that Musk didn't build a hell of a car. He did. What I'm saying is that government shouldn't be using my tax dollars to give out loans to private companies on the off chance that they might be successful and be able to repay the loan. Plenty haven't been.

So you should only give $500M loans to rich, well-connected, billionaires, right?

Wow.

There were quite several car manufacturers similar to Tesla's size before their large taxpayer-subsidized loan who didn't get those loans.

I guess you must be a well-connected billionaire to qualify. I guess that counts as "fair" nowadays.

Remember the word 'loan' designates a debt instrument. It needs to be paid back. If you don't have the capital to secure the loan (and pay it back), no -- you shouldn't get the money.

Fisker and Solyndra and several others couldn't pay back their loans. The government didn't arrest any of them and didn't take any of their personal assets. The debt was simply discharged.