Robert Reich lets some of the hot air out of the popular image of Elon Musk as a real-world version of John Galt. Ayn Rand’s fictional character was an individualist who fought bureaucracy and institutions. Many see Elon Musk’s success in becoming the world’s richest man as evidence that he made it independent of government, perhaps despite it, through genius and entrepreneurial risk-taking alone.
In truth, Musk has prospered in a business environment designed to make it easier for him to succeed because our government wanted to encourage and financially support businesses like his. We, as taxpayers, both subsidized Tesla sales and were his Space-x patrons. Reich analyzes the numbers.