Tesla Pays Off Its $465 Million 'Loser' Loan

Elon Musk’s “Summer of Revenge Tour” continues. His electric-car company, Tesla Motors, just cut the government a $451.8 million check, which means that Tesla has paid off its entire Department of Energy loan plus interest. “Following this payment, Tesla will be the only American car company to have fully repaid the government,” the company boasted (emphasis Tesla’s).

Of all his recent moves, this one must be especially sweet for Musk. Critics have long taken swipes at Tesla and its all-electric hippieness for relying on a federal handout. The most public of such barbs arrived from Mitt Romney during the presidential debates, when he described Tesla as a “loser” alongside Solyndra and Fisker Automotive. Even back then, it seemed a bit silly to lump Tesla—a company employing thousands of people at an American car factory—in with that group of green lollygaggers. And now that Tesla has paid its way off the government dole, Romney may have sealed his fate as that rare capitalist-cum-politician rooting against a successful American car company. (Although Sarah Palin has recently threatened to keep him company.)