>It's utterly inappropriate.

C'mon, this is bordering on a disingenuous argument. You can't acknowledge the different between a service and a product. That's literally the novelty of the CCP. In general practice, you don't pay for a service until after its rendered. But not the case in the NASA contract. If your Uber doesn't show up, you'll get reimbursed whatever small hold they put on. You're only out the service. If SpaceX went belly-up, NASA isn't getting milestone payments back and they don't get their ride. They're out payment and service.

>Musk had no control over it.

Are you claiming that subsidies don't get factored into a business plan? Again, the point is government action makes the business more competitive/profitable. Subsidies to the consumer absolutely impact that. Tesla's own filing acknowledge this point. E.g., they mention regulatory credits add $2.7B to their revenue. They also mention how consumer subsidies impact consumer demand for their cars, and how tax abatements are fundamental to projected operating expenses and financial obligations. Their own statements run afoul of the narrative you're defending.

>they did not get their taxes raised by it, and the company was not previously paying taxes for that location.

Correct. We agree the taxpayers are losing an income stream. If your house was built in a location, do you think you could claim "well there was nothing here before, so not paying income taxes is of no consequence"? It's a weird take if you think the public isn't offering something of value with beneficial tax breaks. If they are offering something of value, they are helping the business. I also agree the taxpayers can benefit from it, I don’t think they have to be in conflict, just acknowledged.

>I'm curious why you (apparently) think that anyone could have done what Musk did?

I've never claimed that, you seem to border on fanboy admiration of him. I think Musk is a once in a generation entrepreneur. I also think his business MO is heavily reliant on government contracts and special treatment. Those two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. But the latter is contradictory to free-market ideals. That's the point that you're constantly side-stepping. Worship him if you want, but also acknowledge his success is tightly coupled to governmental help.

SpaceX has done amazing things. Buit I'm going to venture we have different opinions why. IMO, t's because they get to operate under different rules. I think the main advantage that NASA is buying is a plausible way to skirt a lot of the rules (political and technical) they must abide by. CCP does not, and that's largely why they can do things differently. That's not a guarantee of success (see: Boeing) but it sets the table.

You may not realize it, but we've had this same tired discussion a while ago. At that time, I said we will see Musk's business acumen with what he does with Twitter. Apropos of TFA, that doesn't currently put him in good light. 6 months ago it was valued at $9B, and then shortly later valued at $45B so that he could essentially sell it to himself at that valuation. At the very least, that indicates a lot of uncertainty. That is a suspect valuation, but to be generous there are some differential outcomes: 1) xAI becomes profitable largely due to the synergies from the sale of Twitter/X, 2) xAI is profitable in spite of the purchase, 3) xAI does not become profitable. It will be interesting to see, and I will be interested to see if we'll ever get insight into the private company to find out. It will also be interesting to see if future success is still coupled to government/political help; I suspect that's a drug hard to break from.