So maybe giving a ton of subsidies with little strings attached to what essentially is only Tesla was not a good move. Maybe if those subsidies were targeted just a bit better to steer them towards more societally beneficial goals might have made that instead of giving a ton of money to Musk to buy and fuck up some random social media website, they could have given that same money to battery manufacturers.

This wound is more self-inflicted if anything, it’s just that the US actually believed its own kool-aid that they are the best at innovation because of “capitalism”, and other places are just never going to be able to compete. Tariffs won’t help either. The US will either catch up or be left behind. It will hurt either way, but isolating will only let the wound fester.

BTW, as a European, this is how it feels like to be on the receiving end of Big Tech. Any attempt of trying to curb the influence of what essentially is a foreign power pouring limitless resources into a key industry is going to be taken as anti-competitive protectionist idiocy, and you will just be chastised that “well, you are just envious of China, because they don’t have the low-growth policies that stifle your innovation and growth!”