Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't that pretty much what happened with GM? The stocks and bonds were all wiped out. And then the new GM was owned by the government / union until they did an IPO a few years later?
Yes, eventually. First the auto industry asked and revived $25 billion in TARP money and $5 billion in loans for auto industry suppliers. That was not enough and they asked another $25 billion and this time the government refused. Only after that GM and Chrysler went bankrupt.
> MAZZUCATO: What the U.S. government actually did with Tesla was the opposite of what they should do. They said, thinking they were quite wise, “If you fail to pay back the loan, we get three million shares in your company.” And you have to ask yourself why all these Goldman Sachs guys who were in Obama’s government didn’t actually come through when they were needed, because they should have said the opposite: “If you do pay back the loan, we get three million shares.” And the price per share, when the loan was taken out in 2009, was $9 a share. When it was paid back in 2013, it was $90 a share. That difference multiplied by three million would have more than paid back the Solyndra loss and the next round. Then the question becomes: how do you share not only the risks but also the rewards? So we don’t get what we get with the banks, which is that when things go bad the state has to bail them out, and when things go well, the banks take the profits.