It’s pretty easy to show a profit if the liability side of the ledger has been thrown into the waste bin.
GM, and others, have gotten much more money than that over the years due to incentives from the Federal, state and local governments.
When the OK City GM plant was opened a little over 30 years ago the state and local governments handed GM the farm in the name of job creation. (about 2000 jobs it was claimed)
Not too long before the plant was scheduled to open I had to attend a school in Houston, TX and on the way back the GCA radar at DFW was going stupid so I had a 3 hour layover. Grabbing a newspaper and while having a few drinks in the airport bar I read on the business page that GM was closing their Fort Worth facility and causing a loss of several thousand jobs.
The article also stated that the TX workers were being given first crack at the OK jobs so in the grand scheme of things nothing was improved with the only factor being that OK ponied up more tax money than TX did.
To make matters worse, the GM plant closed in 2006 and Oklahoma County bought the empty White Elephant building for over 50 million dollars. They’re leasing this in turn to Tinker AFB for 1 dollar a year.
GM cashed in on the taxpayers for 50 million plus on the way out of town and in 50 million or so years that 1 dollar a year lease will retire the debt; not factoring in anything other than the actual purchase price.