> The cost of the employees is not limited to their salaries.
The company is not just the sum of employee costs. Have some integrity. Expanding on the definition of "spending on employees" is redundant and only serves to weaken the premise (subsidy/employees = huge effective salaries).
> They would not be employed if the business didn't make some sort of economic sense and have work to do and that seems to be reliant on the subsidies.
This is not logical. There are plenty of positions (like the janitors and lawyers) that are not dependent on the specific business model to have jobs. Some of the employees may be able to get different jobs. I'm not sure someone who is an expert on Tesla batteries couldn't manage to get a contractor's license.
After scrutinizing your comments, I'm going to say you failed to reasonably explain why the subsidies would result in $360,000+ per employee. Employees are not the only cost (as you've implied), so maybe you need to look into their facility costs and taxes and debts (like equipment leases)...you know the costs that go into running a company. This was my only point, to which you had a truly strange response.
Maybe you'll realize it, maybe you'll just keep trying to argue the articulation of a knee-jerk thought you had.