Palmer Luckey

a problem with it if i am getting paid by taxpayers they should have the ability to elect people elect representatives elect you know who will then nominate people who can hold me to account in any way they wish if they want to say that i only pay myself five million dollars until i'm caught up with my schedules they should be allowed to do that

Well, you can probably guess where I fall on this issue.

President Trump is saying that he wants to see defense companies building new plants, building new factories, delivering on time, and then maintaining systems cost effectively.

And that's, I mean, trying to do more.

That is why I started Andro eight years ago, because I looked at the United States defense industrial base and realized we weren't moving fast enough.

We weren't building new plants.

We weren't building the new technologies that we needed.

And so I'd say I'm broadly aligned.

Personally speaking, I think dividends and buybacks are actually very, very different in their tenor.

And I think probably I'm much more on the sides of not allowing these companies to do dividends, certainly not when they're years behind on critical programs where they are failing to invest in new things.

Stock buybacks are a little different because you're investing in yourself.

You're basically saying, I believe that my future is better than my past.

That's different than a dividend, which effectively ends up just being a tax on taxpayers to pay for defense straight into the pockets of public market investors.

So I look at these little things a little differently.

Big picture.

If these companies were doing really well, and if they were living up to their end of the bargain, I don't think you would see any action from Trump or others on this.

It's really a reflection of how many problems we have with our defense industrial base.

Significantly less than a $5 million cap.

True, but I also own a lot of my company.

This measure is not really written in a way where it's intended to hit new companies, starting new things.