> There is no VC who would have accepted a pre-SpaceX pitch for low cost launches, Starlink, or any of the rest of it. It would have been straight up "lol Iridium amirite, get out."

SpaceX was funded by Elon Musk and later, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Peter Thiel's Founder's Fund. Starlink has been in part funded by a $1 billion investment from Google and Fidelity. And since then further funding rounds have been raised.

The DFJ and Founder's Fund investment was before SpaceX had any substantial NASA development contracts, let along their 2008 $1.6 billion launch contract.