Electric car maker Tesla Motors showed on Wednesday it was no Solyndra, announcing it had paid off the balance of a $465 million government loan – nine years early.

The payment means the company founded by billionaire Elon Musk won’t join Solyndra or Abound Solar on the list of green energy start-ups that collapsed after winning millions from a DOE loan guarantee program. Those loans have been a key target for Republicans, who used them to criticize President Barack Obama’s support for renewable energy companies.

On the 2012 campaign trail, Mitt Romney often folded Tesla in with the likes of Solyndra as a ‘loser,