FYI musk had a backup funding for Tesla during that time. Google’s co founder offered to buy out the entirety of the company to accelerate waymo. However musk got the loan, and the rest is history. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/21/google-al...

About as literal to "pulling up the ladder behind you" as you can get.

Really wish people didn't continue to misunderstand the concept of wealth & having cash. First sentence of the article:

> Back when Elon Musk had a bank account with merely one billion dollars in it he had to borrow money from the federal government to get his fledgling EV automaker off the ground. In January of 2010 the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office floated Tesla $465 million ...

Here is an article in 2010 talking about Musk running low on cash & his divorce causing him financial issues https://venturebeat.com/business/elon-musk-personal-finances...