As always, this is again an interesting and somewhat provocative post. Reminds me of Chapter 7 in the Entrepreneurial State You write:
“Elon Musk’s three companies Solar City, Tesla, and Space X have received over $4.9 billion in public support. Sometimes these investments succeed (Tesla), sometimes they fail (Solyndra) — but any venture capitalist will tell you this is normal.”

That it is a lot of money and may not even include all the tax credits Elon Musk got for his venture(s). As well, the final verdict is not out yet if we may have spent the cash better by, for instance, splitting this money amongst 500 projects.

Maybe your research has addressed this already – I do not know – but I would surely like to hear if that is so.
Ciao
Urs