Can we debunk this nonsense?
Elon Musk was awarded (note: not given) cost-per-result contracts to perform a service for the US government. The total of those for SpaceX specifically is ~$22B, which includes repaid loans, state tax incentives, etc.
The deal was simple: put stuff into LEO at or below a set cost. If SpaceX does it below the set cost, SpaceX keeps the difference. If it doesn’t, the company is responsible for the overrun.
End result? SpaceX & Elon lowered the cost of getting 1 kg into LEO by 95-97% vs what NASA was paying previously.
And for the record, every other company around at the time was offered the same opportunity to bid on the contract - Musk/SpaceX just took it.
The handout narrative implies the taxpayer is the patron and SpaceX the dependent. The cost data shows the opposite: before SpaceX, NASA paid Russia’s Soyuz $80-86M per seat; SpaceX delivered at ~$55 million. SpaceX saved the US taxpayer $300M-$465M each year on that alone (the US sends 12-15 astronauts to space each year)
On the lunar lander, NASA estimated SpaceX’s fixed-price bid saved $20B-$30B vs the Boeing-preferred cost-plus approach.
So: SpaceX saved the US taxpayer more than the total value of contracts it earned on a single project, PLUS provided the US government with the requested services (put stuff in LEO) at the best possible price.
The Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine claims that Chris Kyle, author of ‘American Sniper,’ indiscriminately killed civilians in Iraq 20 years ago. It’s a lie, writes Leif Babin. https://t.co/fuogVMaToK
Gilles, je vais démonter ta prémisse de départ, parce que tout le reste de ton argument s'effondre avec elle.
Tu pars du principe qu'il faut une « sensibilité de gauche » pour ne pas laisser créver les gens de faim. C'est l'inverse total de ce que dit l'histoire économique des 50 dernières années.
Les chiffres bruts.
1990 : 2,3 milliards de personnes en pauvreté extrême. 38% de l'humanité.
2025 : 831 millions. Environ 10%.
1,5 milliard d'êtres humains sortis de la misère absolue en 35 ans. La plus grande réduction de souffrance humaine de toute l'histoire de l'espèce.
Qui a fait ça ?
Pas l'aide internationale. Pas les ONG. Pas les programmes de redistribution. Pas la « sensibilité de gauche ».
Le marché. L'ouverture commerciale. La Chine de Deng en 1978 qui abandonne le maoisme. L'Inde en 1991 qui libéralise. Le Vietnam, l'Indonésie, le Bangladesh qui s'ouvrent au capitalisme.
Les seuls endroits où l'extrême pauvreté a EXPLOSÉ sur la même période ? Le Vénézuela socialiste : de 27% de pauvres en 2008 à plus de 80% en 2018, avec une inflation de 130 000% et un Vénézuélien moyen qui a perdu 11 kilos par dénutrition. La Corée du Nord. Cuba. Le Zimbabwe de Mugabe.
La gauche ne nourrit pas les pauvres. Elle les fabrique.
Le capitalisme produit tellement de richesse que même ses « perdants » américains vivent mieux que la classe moyenne soviétique. Un pauvre US a un frigo, une voiture, un téléphone, l'air conditionné, internet. Un pauvre cubain attend du riz.
Ton argument selon lequel « le social aux USA est un désastre » repète une légende française. La réalité : le PIB par habitant américain est de 80 000$. Français : 45 000$. Un Mississippien — l'État US le plus pauvre — a un revenu médian supérieur au Français moyen.
La vérité que la gauche française refuse de regarder : dans un système libéral, il y a plus de richesse créée, plus largement distribuée, et beaucoup moins de pauvres. Partout. Sans exception. Sur toutes les périodes mesurées.
ÊTRE de gauche en 2026 face à ces données, ce n'est pas avoir de la « sensibilité ». C'est ignorer 35 ans de preuves accablantes. C'est préférer la posture morale au résultat.
La compassion sans résultats, ça s'appelle de la vanité.
🚨Governor DeSantis says just voting for the right people is NOT ENOUGH!
We need to impose TERM LIMITS and a BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT on Congress and we are 28 out of 34 States needed to make it happen!
“We need term limits. We need to force change in Washington.”
I am the Chairman and CEO of Vornado Realty Trust. Eighty-four years old. Seven buildings in Midtown Manhattan. I said what I said.
I said "tax the rich" is the equivalent of a racial slur. I said it at REBNY. Into the microphone. Eight hundred people. Median net worth in that room was north of $240 million, I know because our CFO ran the guest list through a Bloomberg terminal as a joke, and then it wasn't a joke. And when I said it, twelve people applauded. The rest nodded. One woman in the third row mouthed, "Finally." I saw her.
Sharon, my communications advisor, Columbia, $430,000 a year, very bright, Sharon wants me to walk it back. She drafted something. "Mr. Roth's comments were intended to highlight the emotional impact of political rhetoric on business communities." I read it. I put it in the trash can on my desk. Not the recycling. The trash. Here's my clarification: I understated it.
"Tax the rich" is worse than a slur. A slur is just a word. It doesn't come with a CBO score. Nobody is introducing a bill called the Racial Slur Implementation Act of 2026. But there are seventeen active proposals in Congress, I had Sharon count them, seventeen proposals designed to take more of my money. My money. Mine. Money I acquired by being better at acquiring Manhattan commercial real estate than anyone alive for four consecutive decades. That is not a crime. That is a record.
I pay property taxes on $18.2 billion in assessed assets. $412 million a year. Say it again: four hundred and twelve million. I carry that number. It's the first thing I think about when I see a protest sign. I think: I pay more in property tax than the entire annual budget of the city of Fort Lauderdale. I looked this up. Fort Lauderdale: $408 million. Steve Roth: $412 million. I am a small city. And the city doesn't get screamed at.
My effective tax rate last year was 11.4 percent. I say this because I believe in transparency and because I'm not ashamed of it. The rate reflects the legal structure of real estate investment trusts, depreciation schedules Congress established in 1986, and carried interest provisions that both parties have voted to preserve for forty years. I did not write these laws. I organized my entire financial existence around them with the help of nine full-time tax professionals who have offices on the 38th floor of 888 Seventh Avenue, which I also own. Their office is in my building. Their work protects my buildings. This is not a loophole. Sharon calls it a loophole. I've told her: a structure maintained by nine attorneys across four decades is not a loophole. A loophole is something you slip through once. This is architecture. This is the foundation. This is the building.
Last Tuesday, same as every Tuesday, I walked past 1290 Sixth Avenue. My building. And there was a man. Same man as last week. Same sign: "Billionaires Pay Your Fair Share." He was standing on my sidewalk. My literal sidewalk — my company owns the ground lease. He was maybe thirty. He was wearing a jacket I would estimate cost $60. My lunch that day was $114. For one. I am telling you this not to boast but because these are facts. He has decided I'm his enemy. Based on a number he saw on a Forbes list. He doesn't know what I pay. He doesn't know what my buildings cost this city in construction jobs and lease revenue and foot traffic. He knows one number. He has made one judgment.
I see him every Tuesday. I've started to notice things. He brings coffee from the cart, not the Starbucks. He has a backpack that looks heavy. He doesn't look unhealthy. He looks like he probably works somewhere, but not on Tuesdays. I've wondered: does he have a job? Does he have a building? Does he have anything that depends on him the way 4,200 employees depend on me? I suspect not. And yet he has opinions about my tax rate.
I gave $22 million to charity last year. The Met. NYU Langone. Mount Sinai. I gave a building to NYU. Not money for a building — a building. The Steven Roth Residence Hall. It houses 400 students. That man with the sign has never housed 400 students. He hasn't housed one. He gives cardboard. I give structures. This is not a comparison I'm making to flatter myself. It's just arithmetic.
When I said what I said at REBNY, I was saying what every person in that room believes and none of them will say publicly because they have communications advisors and the communications advisors all went to Columbia and they all say "unhelpful." I'm eighty-four. I'm too old for helpful. I'm too old to perform restraint for people who hate me for something I can't change.
I didn't choose to be rich. I chose to be good at one thing for a very long time, and this is what happened. You don't punish someone for that. You don't legislate against someone for that.
My net worth fluctuates between $3.8 and $4.1 billion depending on the quarter. I fluctuate more in a fiscal week than that man on my sidewalk will earn in his life. Both of these are facts. Only one of them is considered polite to say.
They want me to apologize.
I'll be dead in ten years. Twenty if I'm lucky. And they'll still be renting my buildings.