Basically a wealth transfer from US treasury to an individual.
Only if you believe all money belongs to the government and not the people.
No you got it wrong. I don’t envy Elon at all. He negotiated the best deal he could get and worked hard to make his company a success. But I would not deify him for taking taxpayer subsidized loan (the rest of us would be laughed out of the bank) to build this generation’s DeLorean. You don’t seem to understand that resources are limited. That $500 million that went to Elon could have been $500 million in my pocket, your pocket and every other US taxpayer. And I guarantee you we would have spent it more productively than the USG did and created more jobs by doing so in an economically efficient way. If DOE had instead offered to make the loan like a VC firm, then indeed we would have nothing to complain about. But we would also have nothing to talk about as Elon would never have accepted those terms. The government (and the taxpayers who funded the loan) got ripped off, because we gave away money at less than market rates for a project of very dubious value. Personally I’d rather see the money spent on infrastructure - at least we get something that benefits everyone, like the new freeway tunnel that was bored a few miles from my home.