Lawsuits take time and money, and I think having a slightly higher-orbit LEO constellation under independent operational control could provide a fallback that many governments and commercial customers would be willing to pay good money for.

> Most of these competitors are likely using SpaceX launch capacity as well

That's a fair point, but there are ultimately alternatives, even if they might be non-competitive in terms of cost right now. It'd ultimately only be a backup, after all.

> Speech-conditioned funding is clearly afoul of the 1st amendment and related precedent

I was thinking primarily non-US government customers, so the first amendment has no bearing there. I'm pretty sure that the DOD has better ways to compel Elon to not shut off Starlink than e.g. the EU or an Asian government, so to them, that redundancy is probably less valuable.