SpaceX is subsidised (and so is Tesla) and automotive industry was already in the process of electrifying. Tesla just put pressure to speed it up. Haven't checked but it would not surprises me if Formula E predated Tesla.
Winning government contracts over other competitors is not the same thing as “subsidized”. Otherwise Hilton is subsidized because government employees stay there sometimes.
I get the impression that some government contracts are used as stealth subsidies. And SpaceX, Tesla, and Starlink have benefited from plenty of actual subsidies, too.
To be clear, I'm not implying that's a bad thing. These companies seem like an example of subsidies working as intended, i.e. driving innovation.
Can you give specific examples? Diluting the meaning down to “the government is also one of this company’s customers” just makes it meaningless. That will cover nearly every large company.
In January 2020, Toyota passed the milestone of more than 15 million self-charging hybrid vehicles
If every vehicle sold by Tesla since its inception up to the most recent Tesla sales figures released for Q1 of 2022 are accounted for, there are over 2,645,000 Teslas on the road worldwide
Sure, cheap hybrids. Nobody is buying them because it's their dream car though, it is just affordable and cheap to run. Tesla makes cars that are desirable.
Funny enough it would be hard to find anyone with more CEO experience than Musk. This doesn't mean he does all the management, often the work of these guys is to find the right people to do the management for them.
