the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Mar 31, 2025
Tesla, the manufacturer of electric vehicles owned by Elon Musk, grew to its present size and standing thanks to tens of millions of dollars in government handouts—and helped make Musk the world’s richest man in the process.
Tesla only started turning a profit thanks to credits given by twelve states to companies that build electric vehicles—to the tune of 6.5 billion dollars from 2019 to 2024.
If electric vehicles are the wave of the future, you might expect that Tesla, the biggest EV manufacturer in the U.S., would be investing in building more vehicles. Not so. In the last five years, Tesla has only put 25% of its free cash into capital investment—that is, plants for building cars. From 2009 to 2015, the company put 50% of its free cash into plants—those were the years when the company was establishing itself, in large part thanks to half a billion dollars from the Obama administration.
But now, financial speculation is in the driver’s seat. Fifty percent of Tesla’s free cash is going into the markets—including a 1.5 billion dollar investment into cryptocurrency, just in 2021. So … Tesla takes money from the government, only to put it straight into the financial casino.
That says it all—“the company of the future” is harvesting taxpayers’ tax dollars to fatten Musk and other investors on speculation. They know this capitalist system has no future—and they place their bets accordingly.