Elon Musk’s tale of government regulation tells why American innovation is dying
Elon Musk has told a tragic and hilarious story about his run-ins with the government when he was trying to get SpaceX in the air. It’s the kind of thing that explains why America’s greatness is slipping, and the world will suffer for it.
In her relatively short lifespan compared to the world’s other nations, America has generated an extraordinary number of new ideas or refinements on old ideas. This explosive creative energy has rescued humankind from the stagnation of the old world. And yes, I appreciate the beauties of the Old World as much as the next tourist, but the reality is that because what the Europeans had done had worked, they saw no need to change.
The New World was different. It’s no surprise that it was an American, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who coined the expression, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” In the boom after the Civil War, Thomas Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park, helped Americans see what was possible. Inspired by Edison’s innovations and his willingness to fund others to innovate, Americans exploded with ideas.
Image: X screen grab (AI edited for clarity).
Lots were silly, which inspired Rube Goldberg’s wonderful cartoons. However, many weren’t silly at all, as American innovations changed the world, whether it was mass-produced cars, functional flight, air conditioning, the telephone, email, GPS, the polio vaccination, or millions of other things, both large and small, coming together in a number so large it defies any single list. Americans were abuzz with ideas, and nothing could stop them.
Powered by this creative energy, Americans built things on a grand scale, whether through private enterprise or through government. They built transcontinental railroads (or, as Obama said, “intercontinental” railroads) and highways, massive dams, skyscrapers, bridges, sprawling cities, nuclear power plants, and spaceships. Some of their projects were ugly and damaged the environment in ways we eventually figured out were problematic. Still, so much was magnificent, and most of it powered the world in which we live—a world in which people eat better food, and are healthier, more comfortable, and live longer than any humans before us.
But then, the government got involved. Not all of that was bad. San Francisco weathered 1989’s Loma Prieta earthquake fairly gracefully in part because of building codes that had planned for such an eventuality. The same was not true in Pakistan, China, Haiti, or Mexico City, all places with a history of earthquakes but no history of building to protect against them. People died horribly in the resulting wreckage.
Likewise, while our cars are getting prohibitively expensive, it’s hard to complain about the lives saved because of now-standard requirements such as crumple zones, airbags, or better seatbelts.
As in all things, moderation and reason must be the key. But the government is no longer moderate or reasonable.
In San Francisco, it cost $1.6 billion and took ten years to build a 1.7-mile-long spur to the existing underground municipal railroad system. In the same leftist-run region, the price tag for a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge exploded from $40-50 million in 2008 to $222 million by 2023. The project was finally completed in 2024.
Moving outside of San Francisco to California itself, you get the high-speed rail to nowhere, a project that has kept ballooning in costs since taxpayers approved it in 2008. Back then, they were promised that a train between the Los Angeles region and the San Francisco Bay Area would cost about $9 billion. Current estimates for just the first phase of the project are $89-128 billion.
Currently, construction is ongoing but nothing’s been completed. Admittedly, it’s a big project, but it took only five years to build the Hoover Dam. And while I don’t know how long it took to build the transcontinental railway, which crossed two vast mountain ranges, I think it took less time and money than California is taking to build through the flat Central Valley.
California’s not the only monument to inefficiency. Chicago’s project to expand the city’s rail system has also been slow and expensive:
The Red Line Extensions cost has ballooned from $642 million per mile to $946 million, and now to an unprecedented $1.026 billion per mile. Using “equity” as the sole rationale for constructing the world’s most expensive elevated train line to an area mischaracterized as a… pic.twitter.com/dSRUv6Kpg6
— Alexander Lacherbauer (@lacherbauer) October 19, 2024
Put differently, the Red Line Extension is spending almost $6 BILLION to reduce travel times by only 10-12 mins to the furthest lowest density end of the city.
— Alexander Lacherbauer (@lacherbauer) October 20, 2024
The present journey time by @cta from Downtown to Altgeld Gardens (Red Line + 34 Bus) takes 1hr 3 mins total, of which… pic.twitter.com/rtuPiqRDhL
Perhaps this is inevitable when the government plays around with taxpayer money. Bureaucracies often are giant black holes filled with people (often well-meaning) who haven’t earned the money they’re spending. No shareholders are breathing down their necks, so efficiency isn’t an object.
Sadly, though, it’s not limited to government. As Elon Musk explains, the government is perfectly willing to interfere with private enterprise, too. This short video is worth every minute of your time—and his bit about the whales shows that Musk is a comedic genius:
This story of strangulation by over-regulation from @elonmusk about the government requiring @SpaceX to asses whether their rockets could potentially hit SHARKS and WHALES is side-splittingly hilarious. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/E06XIJm7zy
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) October 20, 2024
As you consider what Musk described, remember, too, that the environmentalists have been fine with offshore windfarms that kill whales en masse. That’s because windfarms are “green,” while SpaceX belongs to someone who believes in free speech. Remember, too, that vast parts of the ocean are mostly dead because they are effectively deserts. It’s the land that brings life to the water.
What Musk describes, although he does so in amusing terms, is the death of American greatness. So, while his narrative is told with comic panache, it’s also an American tragedy.