"“That would have been it for SpaceX,”* Musk said. *“But fate liked us that day.”

That’s because the fourth launch succeeded, reportedly due to engineers changing a single line of code to fix a problem from the third attempt. The success helped SpaceX land a commercial contract with NASA valued at roughly $1.6 billion, extending the young company a lifeline."[1]

“NASA called and told us we won a $1.5 billion contract,” Musk can be heard saying in the clip. “I couldn't even hold the phone. I just blurted out, 'I love you guys!’" Pelley asks in the clip, "They saved you," Yeah, they did,” Musk is heard saying. He describes that he had “virtually no money, a fourth failure would have been absolutely game over. Done.” [2]

Musk deserves credit for avoiding that 4th failure, but that's not the same as saying the business was viable without govt support. That's where I think you're initial response is off the mark. To your earlier points, though, I think this is where the hybrid model excels. The govt, due to it's size, can take on a disproportionate risk to help nascent companies/technologies. But let's not lose sight of the fact that many of these success stories are predicated on socializing that risk to the taxpayer early on.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/30/elon-musk-warning-not-first-...

[2] https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/science/nasa-2...

> Musk deserves credit for avoiding that 4th failure, but that's not the same as saying the business was viable without govt support. That's where I think you're initial response is off the mark.

You can't seem to understand that NASA offer is not the same as closing the company without it. While NASA offer was nice, I never heard Musk saying certainly that without that offer - after Falcon-1 flew successfully - SpaceX would close.

Government takes risk just like commercial companies take risk. Nothing unusial here. Taking such risk means that some ventures will fail, but overall it will get better than without taking risk.

How do you expect them to continue, let alone get commercial contracts, when they are out of money? NASA gave them their first major contract and they didn't have a commercial contract until they got an AsiaSat three and a half years later, which came in at a paltry 5% of the NASA contract. How long do you think they could reasonably bleed money while operating on hopes and dreams without the massive NASA contract? The numbers just don't add up and Musk himself corroborated that fact. To the point I've been making all along, part of Musk's business plan has been to leverage govt contracts.

>Government takes risk just like commercial companies take risk.

Incorrect. Govt payloads are self-insured. This is essentially saying "We have such deep pockets that it doesn't matter if we lose the payload, it won't hurt us financially." I don't know many private organizations with that risk threshold. This is partly why the early govt contract is so important. It allows SpaceX to get enough experience while being funded by a customer that isn't risk-adverse. This buys them time to improve to a point where commercial payloads can be insured without being cost-prohibitive. Again to my original point, this means the govt shoulders a disproportionate amount of risk.

I guess when the CEO says "Yep, they saved us. Without that contract, we'd be done because we were out of money" and that isn't clear enough, you've transitioned to fanboy-dom. Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a hurdle.