In an investment, the investor is intentionally putting money at risk in the hope that the project is successful. It's established up-front that if the project is unsuccessful, the invested money is lost. It's probably unfair for an investor to feel cheated when an investment doesn't work out.
With this purchase, Jones paid Xcor in exchange for a service that Xcor said it could provide. Xcor neither provided the service nor can provide a refund, and Jones is very right to be upset. It's probably fair to distrust the people behind Xcor for any future financial commitments, much more than if it had been presented as an investment.
You might say that this particular purchase was obviously risky enough that any reasonable person should have seen it as an investment, but I'd be hesitant to assume that the full risks were clear to everyone who paid the money, and the burden is on the company to not make commitments it can't keep. (That said, I certainly don't know if or how the risks were communicated to buyers.)
Generally, the receivers (bankruptcy administrators, lawyers, accountants, etc) are paid first. Mysteriously their fees always seem to add up to exactly however much money was left, and there is nothing left for anyone else.
That won't matter. This sort of situation actually happens all the time. When a corporation goes into bankruptcy, customers are the last on the list to be paid.
A more common scenario: A ski resort goes bust. What happens to people who have purchased season tickets (ski as much as you want all year) when the ski season at the resort is cancelled? There is no practical way to provide the purchased service. The entity that sold the ticket is bankrupt. By the definition of bankruptcy, there isn't enough money for everyone. The government (taxes), secured creditors and banks are paid out first. Then employees (pension funds etc) come next. There just isn't ever anything left for customers.