Elon Musk: The Welfare King?s Latest Failures - and Government Cronyism Cover Ups

A New Administration -

A New Reckoning

by Seton Motley, Contributing Author: Elon Musk is the welfare God-King. He is an all-time champion of government money reception – $5 billion and counting.

And as you know, Ladies and Gentlemen: Government money isn't government money – until they have first taken it from us. It's actually our money.

And with that government bureaucrat investment (of our money) – comes government bureaucrat protection of their investment.

If Musk messes up – it looks really bad for the bureaucrats who have given him, again, FIVE BILLION DOLLARS of OUR money.

So the bureaucrats will spend hundreds of millions of dollars (or more) – of OUR money – so as to cover up Musk's mess ups.

Because his mess ups – are their mess ups. And may lead to the people footing the crony bill – that, again, is us – asking why the heck Musk received FIVE BILLION DOLLARS of our money.

There is a long history of Musk messing up – and government covering up. To wit – Musk's space exploration company SpaceX:"In June 2015, SpaceX cost taxpayers $110 million when one of its Falcon 9 rockets exploded on a mission to resupply the International Space Station. The company received all but 20 percent of the payment it would have received for completing the mission successfully. Though two years have since passed, the cause of the rocket's failure remains unclear.

"NASA assured the public that the agency would release a public summary of the results from its investigation by this summer. But just weeks ago, NASA announced that it will no longer to do so. 'NASA is not required to complete a formal final report or public summary since it was an FAA licensed flight,' a spokesman claimed."Get that? NASA originally promised us a two-year assessment – that should have taken a month. And then waits out the two years – and declares they'll never provide us the assessment.

Oh. Ok. I can't imagine why "Drain the Swamp" Donald Trump won.

Do other, non-Musk space companies get treated a little more realistically? Mais oui:"In October 2014, Orbital's "Antares" rocket experienced a failure that led to the destruction of $51 million in NASA supplies. That launch was also an FAA-licensed commercial launch. It was even conducted under the same NASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program as the SpaceX flight. And, as with SpaceX, it involved the failure of an expiring version of the rocket line in question. NASA still put out an executive summary within one year of the incident."Oh. Ok. I can't imagine why "Drain the Swamp" Donald Trump won.

Want some more Musk SpaceX mess ups? No problem:"The Falcon 9 went up in smoke again just months later. One of the rockets blew up again in September 2016, destroying a $205 million Facebook satellite and the entirety of a $62 million government contract."

"The Falcon 9 went up in smoke again just months later. One of the rockets blew up again in September 2016, destroying a $205 million Facebook satellite and the entirety of a $62 million government contract."Good stuff all. We've received a decent government accounting – of none of this.

Well, behold Musk's November mess up:"SpaceX's launch of a secret U.S. government mission from Kennedy Space Center won't happen until after Thanksgiving.

"Beyond that, the mystery surrounding the mission called Zuma, which was postponed last week, is only deepening.

"SpaceX's only statement, issued last Thursday, said it had put the launch on hold so teams could review an issue uncovered during tests of Falcon rocket nose cones, or payload fairings, that were performed recently for another customer.

"'We will take the time we need to complete the data review and will then confirm a new launch date,' the statement said."Oh wait – behold Musk's other November mess up:"SpaceX is investigating why one of its rocket engines exploded during a test earlier this week at the company's facility in Texas, the company confirmed Wednesday.

"The explosion involved the next generation of the company's Merlin engine. The mishap occurred Sunday during what the company called a 'qualification test.'…(T)he company founded by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk once again has to figure out what went wrong with its hardware."At this point:"SpaceX says it will suspend testing of the Block 5 engine until it figures out what went wrong and how to correct it. Depending on how long this process takes, it could delay the implementation of the engine in mid- to late-2018."I would say I am not at all comfortable with Musk's SpaceX investigating itself.

But the only alternative has always been the same crony government bureaucrats – doing the same awful non-investigating they've always done.

But wait – we are now in the very different hands of Donald Trump and his Administration.

If ever a particular bog of the Swamp needed draining – this is it.

Here's hoping the Trump Administration will provide due diligence to how the government is giving oh-so-much of our money to Musk – and how he is spending it.

The government due diligence never before provided Musk's many previous mess ups.

Let's Make Space Great Again.

And also how we spend the copious government coin to get there.
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Seton Motley is the President of Less Government and he contributes to ARRA News Service. Please feel free to follow him him on Twitter   /   Facebook.

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